ing of a triangle startled the mountain stillness. The
Mexicans dropped their tools, and the white teamster
left a mule with its galled back half washed.

In a moment there were only the four Englishmen in
the corral.

Kirby finished greasing the nut of a wagon. Then
he went to the water trough and washed his hands and
face, drying them upon a towel in the harness room.
He explained that they didn't make much of a toilet
for luncheon.

" Luncheon ! " said Cairness, as he smoothed his hair
in front of a speckled and wavy mirror, which reflected
all of life that came before it, in sickly green, " caba-
listic word, bringing before me memories of my wasted
youth. There was a chap from home in my troop,
until he deserted, and when we were alone we would
say luncheon below our breaths. But I haven't eaten
anything except dinner for five years."

At the house he met Kirby's wife, a fair young woman,
who clung desperately here in the wilderness, to the
traditions, and to as many of the customs as might be,
of her south-of -England home.

The log cabin was tidy. There were chintz curtains
at the windows, much of the furniture, of ranch manu-
facture, was chintz covered, the manta of the ceiling was
unstained, there were pictures from London Christmas
papers on the walls, and photographs of the fair women
at "home."

There were also magazines and a few books in more
than ooe language, wild flowers arranged in many sorts



36 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

of strange jars, and in the corner, by an improvised
couch, a table stacked with cups and plates of Chelsea-
Derby, which were very beautiful and very much out
of place.

The log cabins were built, five of them, to form a
square. The largest contained the sitting room and a
bedroom, the three others, bedrooms and a storehouse,
and the kitchen and dining room were in the fifth.

When they went into this last, the ranch hands were
already at a long oilcloth-covered table. The Kirbys
sat at a smaller one, laid with linen, and the lank wife
of one of the men served them all, with the help of a
Mexican boy.

Cairness pitied Mrs. Kirby sincerely. But if she felt
herself an object of sympathy, she did not show it.

The woman fairly flung the ill-cooked food upon the
table, with a spitefulness she did not try to conceal.
And she manifested her bad will most particularly
toward the pretty children. Cairness felt his indig-
nation rise against Kirby for having brought a woman
to this, in the name of love.

" We have tea at five," Mrs. Kirby told him, as they
finished, and her husband started out to superintend
and help with the digging of an acequia.

So at five o'clock Cairness, coming again into that
part of the cabin which his hostess persistently named
the drawing-room, found the three Englishmen taking
their tea, and a little man in clerical garb observing
the rite with considerable uncertainty. He would have
no tea himself, and his tone expressed a deep distrust



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 37

of the beverage. By the side of his chair stood a tall
silk hat. It was in all probability the only one in the
territories, or west of the Missouri, for that matter,
and it caught Cairness's eye at once, the more especially
as it was pierced by two round holes. As he stirred
his tea and ate the thin slices of buttered bread, his
glance wandered frequently to the hat.

"Lookin' at my stove-pipe?" asked the Reverend Mr.
Taylor. " Only one in these parts, I reckon," and he
vouchsafed an explanation of the holes. " Them
holes ? A feller in Tucson done that for me."

What had he done to the fellow, if he might ask,
Cairness inquired.

"What did I do? The same as he done unto me.
Let the air into his sombrero." He told them that he
was studying the flora of the country, and travelling
quite alone, with an Indian pony, a pack-mule, and a
dog a prospector's outfit, in short.

After tea the ranchers settled down to smoke and
read. The Reverend Taylor brought out his collec-
tion of specimens and dilated upon them to Cairness.

"I put them in this here book," he said, "betwixt
the leaves, and then I put the book under my saddle
and set on it. I don't weigh so much, but it works all
right," he added, looking up with a naive smile that
reached from one big ear to the other. " To-morrow,"
he told him later, " I'm going to ride over here to Tuc-
son again. What way might you be takin'?"

" I think perhaps I'll go with you, if you'll wait over
a day," Cairness told him. He had taken a distinct



38 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

fancy to the little botanist who wore his clerical garb
while he rode a bronco and drove a pack-mule over the
plains and mountains, and who had no fear of the
Apache nor of the equally dangerous cow-boy. Cair-
ness asked him further about the hat. "That chim-
ney-pot of yours," he said, "don't you find it rather
uncomfortable? It is hot, and it doesn't protect you.
Why do you wear it ? "

The little man picked it up and contemplated it,
with his head on one side and a critical glance at its
damaged condition. Then he smoothed its roughness
with the palm of his rougher hand. " Why do I wear
it?" he drawled calmly ; "well, I reckon to show 'em
that I can."

At six o'clock Kirby knocked the ashes from his
pipe, the other two men, who had buried themselves in
the last Cornhill and Punch with entire disregard of
the rest of the room, put down the magazines, and all
of them rose. "We dine at seven," Mrs. Kirby said to
Taylor and Cairness as she passed through the door,
followed by her husband.

" Where are they all goin' to?" the Reverend Taylor
asked in plaintive dismay. He had risen to his feet
because he had seen Cairness do it, and now he sat
again because Cairness had dropped back on the couch.
He was utterly at sea, but he felt that the safest thing
to do would be that which every one else did. He
remembered that he had felt very much the same once
when he had been obliged to attend a funeral service
in a Roman Catholic Church. All the purple and fine



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 39

linen of the Scarlet Woman and the pomp and circum-
stance surrounding her had bewildered him in about
this same way.

Cairness reached out for the discarded Cornhill, and
settled himself among the cushions. " They're going
to dress, I rather think,' 5 he said. The minister almost
sprang from his chair. " Good Lord ! I ain't got any
other clothes," he cried, looking ruefully at his dusty
black.

"Neither have I," Cairness consoled him, from the
depths of a rehearsal of the unwisdom of Ismail Pasha.

The Reverend Taylor sat in silence for a time, re-
flecting. Then he broke forth again, a little queru-
lously. " What in thunderation do they dine at such
an hour for ? " Cairness explained that it was an Eng-
lish custom to call supper dinner, and to have it very late.

" Oh ! " said Taylor, and sat looking into the fire.

A few minutes before seven they all came back into
the sitting room. The men wore black coats, by way
of compromise, and Mrs. Kirby and the children were
in white.

"Like as not she does up them boiled shirts and
dresses herself, don't you think ? " was the minister's
awed comment to Cairness, as they went to bed that
night in the bare little room.

" Like as not," Cairness agreed.

" She's mighty nice looking, ain't she ? "

Cairness said " yes " rather half heartedly. That
fresh, sweet type was insipid to him now, when there
was still so fresh in his memory the beauty of a black-



40 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

haired girl, with eagle eyes that did not flinch before
the sun's rays at evening or at dawn.

" I'll bet the help don't like the seven o'clock dinner."

Cairness suggested that they were given their supper
at six.

" I know that. But they don't like it, all the same.
And I'll bet them cutaways riles them, too."

Cairness himself had speculated upon that subject a
good deal, and had noticed with a slight uneasiness the
ugly looks of some of the ranch hands. "They are
more likely to have trouble in that quarter than with
the Indians," he said to himself. For he had seen
much, in the ranks, of the ways of the disgruntled,
free-born American.

Before he left with Taylor on the next morning but
one, he ventured to warn Kirby. But he was met
with a stolid " I was brought up that way," and he
knew that argument would be entirely lost.

" Over here to Tucson " was a three days' ride
under the most favorable circumstances ; but with the
enthusiastic botanist dismounting at short intervals to
make notes and press and descant upon specimens, it
was five days before they reached, towards nightfall,
the metropolis of the plains.

They went at once for supper to the most popular
resort of the town, the Great Western Saloon and Res-
taurant. It was a long adobe room, the whitewash of
which was discolored by lamp smoke and fly specks
and stains. There were also bullet holes and marks of
other missiles. At one end was a bar, with a tin top



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 41

for the testing of silver coins. Several pine tables
were set out with cracked sugar bowls, inch-thick
glasses, bottles of pickles and condiments, still in their
paper wrappings, and made filthy by flies, dust, and
greasy hands. Already there were half a dozen cow-
boys and Mexicans, armed to the teeth, standing about.

They glanced sideways at the big Englishman, who
appeared to be one of themselves, and at the little min-
ister. On him, more especially on his hat, their eyes
rested threateningly. They had heard of him before,
most of them. They answered his genial greeting sur-
lily, but he was quite unruffled. He beamed upon the
room as he seated himself at one of the tables and
ordered supper, for which, in obedience to a dirty sign
upon the wall, he paid in advance.

Having finished, he left Cairness to his own devices,
and dragging a chair under a bracket lamp, set peace-
fully about reading the newspapers. For fully an
hour no one heeded him. Cairness talked to the bar-
tender and stood treat to the aimless loungers. He
had many months of back pay in his pocket, and to
save was neither in his character nor in the spirit of
the country.

The ill-smelling room filled, and various games,
chiefly faro and monte, began. At one table two men
were playing out a poker game that was already of a
week's duration. The reek of bad liquor mingled with
the smell of worse tobacco and of Mexican-cured
leather like which there is no odor known to the
senses, so pungent and permeating and all-pervading it



42 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

is. Several of the bracket lamps were sending up thin
streams of smoke.

The Reverend Taylor gradually became aware that
the air was very bad. He laid down the newspaper
and looked round.

Then a big cow-boy left the bar and loitering over,
with a clink of spurs, touched him on the shoulder.
" The drinks are on you," he menaced. The minister
chose to ignore the tone. He rose, smiling, and
stretching his cramped arms. "All right, my friend,
all right," he said, and going with the big fellow to
the bar he gave a general invitation.

In the expectation of some fun the men gathered
round. Those at the tables turned in their chairs and
sat watching and pulling at their fierce mustaches as
they peered from under the brims of their sombreros.
In the midst of them all the little parson looked even
smaller than he was. But he was sweetly undaunted
and good-humored.

When the barkeeper had served the others, he turned
to him. " What'll you take ? " he demanded, not too
courteously.

" I'll take a lemon soda, thanks," said Taylor.

There followed one of those general pauses as explo-
sive as a pistol shot.

Then the cow-boy who had touched him on the shoul-
der suggested that he had better take a man's drink.

But he was not to be changed. "I'll take lemon
soda," he said to the tender, with an amiability that the
cow-boy made the mistake of taking for indecision.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 48

" You better do what I say ! " He was plainly spoil-
ing for a fight.

But the minister still refused to see it. He looked
him very squarely in the eyes now, however. "See
here, I am going to take lemon pop, my friend," he
said.

The friend swore earnestly that he would take what
he was told to.

" You are mistaken, my good fellow, because I won't."
There was not the shadow of hesitation in his voice, nor
did he lower his mild blue eyes.

The cow-boy broadened the issue. "You will,
and you'll take off that plug, too, or I'll know what
for."

" I reckon you'll know what for, then," beamed Tay-
lor, immovably.

Cairness had been standing afar off, with his hands in
his pockets, watching with a gleam of enjoyment under
his knitted brows, but he began to see that there threat-
ened to be more to this than mere baiting ; that the
desperado was growing uglier as the parson grew more
firmly urbane. He drew near his small travelling com-
panion and took his hands suddenly from his pockets,
as the cow-boy whipped out a brace of six-shooters and
pointed them at the hat.

Slowly, with no undue haste whatever, the Reverend
Taylor produced from beneath the skirts of his clerical
garb another revolver. There was a derisive and hilari-
ous howl. When it had subsided, he turned to the bar-
keeper. " Got my lemon pop ready ? " he asked. The



44 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

man pushed it over to him, and he took it up in his left
hand.

" Drop that ! " called the cow-boy.

" Here's how," said the parson, and raised his glass.
A bullet shattered it in his grasp.

Cairness, his hand on the butt of his own pistol, won-
dered, a little angrily, if Taylor were never going to be
roused.

He had looked down at the broken glass and the
stream of water, and then up quite as calmly but a little
less smilingly. " If you do that again, I'll shoot," he
said. "Give me another pop."

There was a chuckle from the group, and a chorus to
the effect that they would be eternally condemned, the
truth of which was patent in their faces. " Leave the
little codger be," some one suggested ; " he ain't skeered
worth a sour apple."

It would have become the sentiment of the crowd in
another moment, but the little codger took up the second
glass, and raised it again. Then it fell smashing to the
floor. A second bullet had broken his wrist.

Cairness started forward and levelled his Colt, but the
divine was too quick for him. He fired, and the cow-
boy sank down, struggling, shot through the thigh. As
he crouched, writhing, on the ground, he fired again, but
Cairness kicked the pistol out of his hand, and the bullet,
deflected, went crashing in among the bottles.

" Now," said Taylor, distinctly, " oblige me with an-
other lemon pop, mister." A cheer went up, and the
minister standing above his fallen enemy raised the



THE HEEITAGE OF UNKEST 45

third glass. " Here's to your better judgment next
time, my friend. 'Tain't the sombrero makes the shot,"
he said. His seamed, small face was pale underneath
its leathery skin, but by not so much as a quiver of an
eyelid did he give any further sign of pain.

"The gentleman who broke them glasses can settle
for his part of the fun," he said, as he paid his reckon-
ing. Then he drew Cairness aside and held out the
limp wrist to be bound, supporting it with his other
hand. And presently they went out from the restau-
rant, where the powder smoke was added to the other
smells, and hung low, in streaks, in the thick atmosphere,
to hunt up a surgeon.

The surgeon, whose lore was not profound, and whose
pharmacy exhibited more reptiles in alcohol than drugs,
set the bones as best he knew how, which was badly ;
and, taking a fancy to Taylor, offered him and Cairness
lodgings for the night, the hospitality of the West
being very much, in those times, like that of the days
when the preachers of a new Gospel were bidden to
enter into a house and there abide until they departed
from that place.

In the morning Cairness left them together and started
for the San Carlos Agency. He was to meet a pro-
spector there, and to begin his new fortunes by locating
some mines.



IV

IT was a bitterly cold January morning. There had
been a rain in the night, and the clouds yet hung gray
over Mt. Graham and the black gap. The wet wind
went howling over the valley, so that the little flag at
the top of the staff snapped and whipped as though it
would be torn from the halyards. Sunday inspection
and guard mounting had been chilling ceremonies, per-
formed in overcoats that were hardly more blue than
the men's faces. Having finished them, Brewster
hurried across the parade to Captain Campbell's
quarters.

He found Felipa curled on the blanket in front of a
great fire, and reading by the glare of the flames, which
licked and roared up the wide chimney, a history of the
Jesuit missionaries. It was in French, and she must
have already known it by heart, for it seemed to be al-
most the only book she cared about. She had become
possessed of its three volumes from a French priest who
had passed through the post in the early winter and had
held services there. He had been charmed with Felipa
and with her knowledge of his own tongue. It was
a truly remarkable knowledge, considering that it had
been gained at a boarding-school.

"You speak with the utmost fluency, my daughter,"

46



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 47

he had commended, and she had explained that she
found expression more easy in French.

" It is curious," she said, " but it has always seemed
as though English were not my native tongue."

When the father returned to Tucson, he had sent her
the history, and she had read and reread it. In a way
she was something of a linguist, for she had picked up
a good deal of Spanish from Mexicans about the post,
chiefly from the nurse of the Campbell children.

There is a certain class of persons to whom it is al-
ways irritating to find any one reading a book. It rubs
them the wrong way instantly. They will frequently
argue that their own, and the best, manner of studying
life is from nature an excellent theory in sound, and
commonly accepted as unanswerable, but about as practi-
cal in fact as the study of music on the instrument alone,
without primer or method.

The mere sight of Felipa on the buffalo robe before
the fire, poring over the old history, exasperated Brew-
ster. " That book again ? " he said crossly, as he drew
up a chair and held out his hands to the flames ; " you
must know it by heart."

" I do," she answered, blinking lazily.

He reflected that it is a trait of the semi-civilized and
of children that they like their tales often retold. But
he did not say so. He was holding that in reserve.
Instead, he changed the subject, with an abrupt inquiry
as to whether she meant to ride to-day. " I suppose
not ? " he added.

" I do, though," she said perversely, as she bent her



48 THE HERITAGE OF UNKEST

head and tried to put into order the tumbled mass of
her hair. " I am going at eleven o'clock."

"Alone?"

"No, not alone."

" It is bitterly cold."

" I don't mind, and neither does Captain Landor."
Her guardian had recently gotten his captaincy.

Brewster's irritation waxed. "Landor again? " he
queried suggestively.

" Landor again," she yawned, ignoring his meaning-
fraught tone. But she watched his face from under
her long lashes.

He glanced over his shoulder at the door. It was
closed ; so he leaned forward and spoke in a lower voice.
"Felipa, are you going to marry Landor, or are you
not?"

It was more than a mere impertinent question, and
she did not pretend to ignore it any longer. She
clasped her hands slowly about her knees and looked
straight at him.

But he was unabashed. " What is he to you ?" he
insisted.

She thought for a moment before she answered.
Then she spoke deliberately, and there was a purring
snarl under her voice. " It is none of your business
that I can see. But I will tell you this much, he is
a man I respect ; and that is more than I have said of
you when I have been asked the same question."

" It is not only my business," he said, overlooking
the last, and bending more eagerly forward, " it is not



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 49

only my business, it is the business of the whole post.
You are being talked about, my dear young lady."

She sprang to her feet so suddenly that her arm
struck him a blow in the face, and stood close in front
of him, digging her nails into her palms and breathing
hard. " If you if you dare to say that again, I will
kill you. I can do it. You know that I can, and I
will. I mean what I say, I will kill you." And she
did mean what she said, for the moment, at any rate.
There was just as surely murder in her soul as though
those long, strong hands had been closed on his throat.
Her teeth were bared and her whole face was distorted
with fury and the effort of controlling it. She drew
up a chair, after a moment, and sat in it. It was she
who was leaning forward now, and he had shrunk back,
a little cowed. " I know what you are trying to do,"
she told him, more quietly, her lips quivering into a
sneer, "you are trying to frighten me into marrying
you. But you can't do it. I never meant to, and now
I would die first."

He saw that the game had reached that stage where
he must play his trump card, if he were to have any
chance. "You are a mean little thing," he laughed.
"It is the Apache blood, I suppose."

She sat for a moment without answering. It was
less astonishment than that she did not understand.
She knitted her brow in a puzzled frown.

But he mistook her silence for dismay, and went on.
"It is only what one might expect from the daughter
of a drunken private and a Mescalero squaw."



50 THE HERITAGE OP UNREST

She was still silent, but she leaned nearer, watching
his face, her lips drawn away from her sharp teeth, and
her eyes narrowing. She understood now.

In his growing uneasiness he blundered on rashly.
"You didn't know it? But it is true. Ask your
guardian. Do you think he would have you for a
wife ? " He gave a short laugh. " He hates an Apache
as he does a Gila monster. Very few men would be
willing to risk it."

She leaned back in her chair, tapping her foot upon
the floor. It was the only sign of excitement, but the
look of her face was not good.

Brewster avoided it, and became absorbed in making
the tips of his fingers meet as he pressed his hands
together.

"Still," said Felipa, too quietly, "I would rather be
the daughter of a drunken private and a Mescalero
squaw than the wife of a coward and sneak."

He stood up and went nearer to her, shaking his
finger in her face. He knew that he had lost, and
he was reckless. " You had better marry me, or I will
tell your birth from the housetops." But he was mak-
ing the fatal mistake of dealing with the child that had
been, instead of with the woman he had aroused.

She laughed at him the first false laugh that had
ever come from her lips. " You had better go now,"
she said, rising and standing with her arms at her side,
and her head very erect.

He hesitated, opening his mouth to speak and shut-
ting it again irresolutely.



THE HERITAGE OF UNREST 51

" I told you to go," she repeated, raising her brows.

He took up his cap from the table, and went.

When Landor came in half an hour later he found
her in her riding habit, sitting in front of the fire. She
was still alone, and he felt instantly that there was
more softness than ever before in the smile she gave
him, more womanliness in the clinging of her hand.
Altogether in her attitude and manner there was less
of the restlessly youthful. He drew a chair beside hers,
and settled back comfortably.

" Mr. Brewster has just been here," she said at length,
and she played with the lash of her whip, avoiding his
eyes, which was also a new way for her.

" I wish Brewster would not come so often," he
said.

For answer she put out her hand and laid it upon
his, not as she had often done it before, in the unatten-
tive eagerness of some argument, but slowly, with a
shadow of hesitation.

He was surprised, but he was pleased too, and he
took the long fingers in his and held them gently.

" Do you still want me to marry you ? " she asked
him.

He told her that he most certainly did, and she
went on.

" Is it because you think you ought to, or because
you really want me ? " She was looking at him steadily
now, and he could not have lied to her. But the
slender hand was warm and clinging, the voice low and
sweet, the whole scene so cosey and domestic, and she



52 THE HERITAGE OF UNREST

herself seemed so much more beautiful than ever, that