ted
red-wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open a
swinging gate, she entered the inclosure as a brown-faced man, dressed
as a vaquero, came towards her as if to assist her to alight. But she
had already leaped to the ground and thrown him the reins.

"Miguel," she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyish
contralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down the
road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the right
bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring him
up here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to know
who he is and where to take him."

The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in disappointed expectation
of some other command. "And your brother, senora, he has not himself
arrived."

A light shadow of impatience crossed her face. "No," she said, bluntly.
"Come, be quick."

She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already a
gaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was awaiting her
with his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and his lips moving
querulously.

"Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tend
to your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own flesh and
blood," he said aggrievedly. "That's all YOU care!"

"There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel to look
after him," returned the girl, with a certain contemptuous resignation.

"Oh, yes!" struck in another voice, which seemed to belong to the female
of the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in age and temper,
"and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a squirrel on the fence,
and either of 'em was more important to you than your own brother."

"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message," continued
the young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner. "No one had any
news of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't expect any."

"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the old man,
sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself, and I would
if I was master here, instead of me and your mother bein' the dust of
the yearth beneath your feet."

The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing an
old woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her resentment
and a large Bible which she held clasped against her shawled bosom
at the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up her large ha