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Calhoun took his departure from the breakfast-table, but, on leaving the sala instead of returning to his own chamber, he went out of the house.
In a barren tract of land, that lay about half way between the hacienda and the Fort, he arrived at the terminus of his expedition. It was the domicile of Miguel Diaz, the Mexican mustanger – a lair appropriate to the semi-savage who had earned for himself the distinctive appellation of El Coyote (“Prairie Wolf”).
Calhoun was fortunate in finding him at home; though not quite so fortunate as to find him in a state of sobriety. He was not exactly intoxicated – having, after a prolonged spell of sleep, partially recovered from this, the habitual condition of his existence.
“Hola!” he exclaimed as his visitor came in. “Who’d have expected to see you? Be seated. Take a chair. There’s one. Ha! ha! ha!”
Calhoun, fatigued with his promenade, accepted the invitation of his host, and sate down upon the horse-skull.
He did not permit much time to pass, before entering upon the object of his errand.
“Senor Diaz!” said he, “I have come for—”
“Senor Americano!” exclaimed the half-drunken horse-hunter, cutting short the explanation, “why waste words upon that? I know well enough for what you’ve come. You want me to wipe out that devilish Irishman!”
“Well!”
“Well; I promised you I would do it – at the proper time and opportunity. Miguel Diaz never played false to his promise. But the time’s not come, captain; nor yet the opportunity. To kill a man outright requires skill. It can’t be done – even on the prairies – without danger of detection. I hate that Irishman as much as you; but I’m not going to chop off my nose to spite my own face. I must wait for the time, and the chance.”
“Both have come!” exclaimed the tempter. “You said you could easily do it, if there was any Indian trouble going on?”
“Of course I said so—”
“You have not heard the news, then?”
“What news?”
“That the Comanches are starting on the war trail.”
“Carajo!” exclaimed El Coyote, springing up from his couch, and exhibiting all the activity of his namesake, when roused by the scent of prey. “Do you speak the truth, captain?”
“Neither more nor less. The news has just reached the Fort. I have it on the best authority – the officer in command.”
“In that case,” answered the Mexican reflecting! – ”in that case, Don Mauricio may die. The Comanches can kill him. Ha! ha! ha!”
“You are sure of it?”
“I should be surer, if his scalp were worth a thousand dollars, instead of five hundred.”
“It is worth that sum.”
“What sum?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“You promise it?”
“I do.”
“Then the Comanches shall scalp him. You may return to Casa del Corvo, and go to sleep with confidence that whenever the opportunity arrives, your enemy will lose his hair. You understand?”
“I do.”
“What a magnificent fluke of fortune!” exclaimed the ruffian, as his visitor limped out of sight. “A thousand dollars for killing the man I intended to kill on my own account! The Comanches upon the war trail! Can it be true? If so, I must look up my old disguise – gone to neglect through these three long years of accursed peace. Viva la guerra de los Indios!”
Little suspected the proud planter – perhaps prouder of his daughter than anything else he possessed – that she was daily engaged in an act of rebellion.
His own daughter – his only daughter – of the best blood of Southern aristocracy; beautiful, accomplished, everything to secure him a splendid alliance – holding nightly assignation with a horse-hunter!
Twice had they stood together in the garden grove – twice had they exchanged love vows – under the steel-grey light of the stars; and a third interview had been arranged between them.
It was nearer the hour of midnight – when a horseman rode away from the door of Oberdoffer’s hotel and took the down-river road that passed the hacienda of Casa del Corvo, at some distance from the house.
On reaching the copse he dismounted; led his horse in among the underwood; by a path that zigzagged down the bluff – and with which he appeared familiar – he descended to the river “bottom.”
He scanned the shrubbery on the other side of the stream; in the endeavour to make out, whether any one was concealed beneath its shadow.
Becoming satisfied that no one was there, he raised the loop-end of his lazo and giving it half a dozen whirls in the air, cast it across the stream. With the help of the lazo he towed the skiff to the side on which he stood.
Stepping in, he took hold of a pair of oars and pulled the boat back to its moorings.
Taking stand under the shadow of the cotton-tree, he appeared to await either a signal, or the appearance of some one, expected by appointment.
At the very moment when he was stepping into the skiff, a small white hand – decorated with jewels that glistened under the light of the moon – opened a window that looked to the rear of the hacienda.
The hour of assignation had arrived. With noiseless tread descending the stone stairway, she glided among the statues and shrubs; until, arriving under the shadow of the cotton-wood, she flung herself into arms eagerly outstretched to receive her.
“Tomorrow night you will meet me again – tomorrow night, dearest Maurice?”
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, – if I were free to say the word.”
“And why not? Why are you not free to say it?”
“Tomorrow, by break of day, I am off for the Alamo.”
“Why should you go?”
“I have excellent reasons for going,” was the reply she received.
“Excellent reasons! Do you expect to meet any one there?”
“My follower Phelim – no one else. I sent him out about ten days ago – before there was any tidings of these Indian troubles. I know that my relations with you are of a questionable character; or might be so deemed, if the world knew of them. It is for that very reason I am going back to the Alamo.”
“And to stay there?”
“Only for a single day, or two at most. Only to gather up my household goods, and bid farewell to my prairie life.”
“I cannot comprehend you. Perhaps I never shall!”
“It is very simple – the resolve I have taken. I know you will forgive me, when I make it known to you.”
“Forgive you, Maurice! For what?”
“For keeping it a secret from you, that – that I am not what I seem.”
“God forbid you should be otherwise than what you seem to me – noble, grand, beautiful, rare among men! Oh, Maurice! you know not how I esteem – how I love you!”
“Not more than I esteem and love you. It is that very esteem that now counsels me to a separation.”
Maurice said he had received the summons from his native country – Ireland – and had to go there for a short time.
“I shall be able soon to return, and prove to your proud father that the poor horse-hunter who won his daughter’s heart – have I won it, Louise?”
“Idle questioner! You know you have more than won it – conquered it to a subjection from which it can never escape.”
During the rapturous embrace that followed this passionate speech there was silence perfect and profound.
But that temporary cessation of sounds was due to a different cause. A footstep grating upon the gravelled walk of the garden was the real cause why the nocturnal voices had suddenly become stilled.
That shadowy listener, crouching guilty-like behind the tree, was a witness to both their passionate speeches and their excited actions. Within easy earshot, he could hear every word – even the sighs and soft low murmurings of their love; while under the silvery light of the moon he could detect their slightest gestures.
It was Cassius Calhoun.
How came the cousin of Louise Poindexter to be astir at that late hour of the night, or, as it was now, the earliest of the morning?
Chance alone, or chance aided by a clear night, had given him the clue to a discovery that now filled his soul with the fires of hell.
He heard their vows; their mutual confessions of love; the determination of the mustanger to be gone by the break of the morrow’s day; as also his promise to return, and the revelation to which that promise led.
He was witness to that final and rapturous embrace, that caused him to strike his foot nervously against the pebbles, and make that noise that had scared the cicadas into silence.
Despite the terrible temptation to put a termination to the intolerable tete-a-tete – and with a blow of his bowie-knife lay his rival low – something hindered him from taking an immediate vengeance and prompted him to turn away from the spot, and with an earnestness, hurry back in the direction of the house.
1) Where did Calhoun go? What news did he bring?
2) What did El Coyote promise to do for a thousand dollars?
3) Where did the lovers meet?
4) Where did Maurice intend to go the next day after the date and why?
5) Who was spying upon the lovers?
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