The Press., 1889-03-14
A MEXICAN ON A MOUNTAIN.

"DOeS he know how picturesque he looks ?" Garcia wondered, She was in- clined to give man credit for vanity, or any other little idiosyncrasy he might pos- sess-Miss Waldo was. A long season of semi -invalidism had given everybody al morbid taste. Jose Mascarel did not know that he might have posed successfully for charming bit of south country life. He knew, of course, that he was handsome, and that the water he drank from Juan Sepulvada's olla was cool and clear. The water jar hung in huge pepper tree, and the fern-like foliage with it's featherly blos- soms dropped nearly to the ground, fram- ing Jose in green arbor, through which the sun glinted. Jose's shirt was snowy white, and the vivid scarlet and yellow handkerchief knotted loosely around his throat gave richer coloring to his swarthy cheek. A wide sombrero covered his black hair, but did not hide the flashing glances the dark eyes cast toward Garcia's ham, mock. The hand that held the gourd was small and shapely, and there was in his sa- lute all the graces of the Spanish cavalier, whose blue blood, diluted, flowed in his veins. Miss Waldo flushed little under that grandiloquent bow. Guiltily 1? Per- haps. She had spent more hours than she liked to remember, lounging on the wide gallery, or swaying lazily in the ham, mock, strung up in the big blue gums ]; listening through the drifting, sunny days to the love tales of old Spain, retold with many embellishments by this young TO- mancer, who had never journeyed hun- dred miles from his mountain home. 1 Jose's bee ranch up the canyon did not occupy much of his time, and while his many legged servants buzzed and laborcd, he brought out his choicest store of sweet sayings for Garcia's delectation.
 Years ago, before Miss Waldo's blue eyes had looked very far into life's mys- 'lteries, both her parents had died of con- sumption. The care of the little girl had fallen on her fathers eldest sister, who was in a constant worry lest Garcia should suffer the same fate. They had come from their eastern home in search of health, to the little foothill village, nestled in the shadow of the Sierra Madres. Here na- ture ran riot in glorious profusion, and sky and earth were alike brilliant in bright est hues. Garcia had been so tired of her colorless surrounding the gray sky; the snow. covered earth her aunts paleness of age and her own dimmed beauty, that she refused to return home, although the October days with their wealth of fruit had come again, and her health was en- tirely restored.
 Miss Waldo's aunt did not take kindly to the gallant Jose, and his occasional per- formances upon the mandolin she utterly disapproved. She came to the door on the afternoon in question with evident deprecation of the pretty tableau.
 "Have you written to Stephen to-day?' she demanded, and Garcia came out from the ruins of Alhambra, where she had S,of o1l nized the hostile gleam of her aunt's spec tacles.
 Jose departed with alacrity, and Garcia prepared unwillingly to enter the house.
 "When an unpleasant fact is 5000 miles away" she grumbled, 'it is very disagree able to be reminded of it." She fell to wondering how Stephen would look in a sombrero and red muller. She shud- dered at the thought.
 "Fancy him at bull fight or with a guitar tied on with red and yellow rib bons. o, dear why is his hair such a pale brown and his mustache SO feeble ? What very pleasant height six feet three is for a man."
 At any rate she was glad she had only partly promised to marry him. How could a girl threatened with tubercles? She took last look at the mountains. How Garcia loved these mountains. When their highest peaks caught the first smile of the morning: when sun and shade flashed at monday over their brown sides i; when the sun said "good night, and hid them in soft purple haze when the clouds came down to rest, and shrouded them ill green mist; ever changing, yet always the same, Garcia loved them, and had dreamed dreams of the happy times when sheS. should explore those hidden canons.
 At hotel down the street lively wid- ow and her sister boarded. Garcia con- sidered them charming acquaintances, but her aunt held them in cold displeasure, mostly on account of what she termed the widows "firty" ways; but she'd been be- guiled into promising, in a moment of weakness, that some time Garcia might accompany the objectionable widow on a mountain excursion. The aunt never in- tended to keep this promise; reconciling 1t with. her conscience that "some time" was so vague that it might be indefinitely postponed, and the journey never accom- plished. Mysterious business took her to Los Angeles one day. This was the wid- ow's opportunity. She swooped down ur on Garcia, and before the bewildered girl realized the situation, she was mounted on ." NuAAo3 1A SOL4PdAy WAoA AWO AoaOy C6V- alters and the widow and her sister. Their destination was tent on the mountain side, occupied by the employees of an irri- gating company, who were tunneling the mountain ln search of water. Garcia had often looked longingly up to this eyrie abode, which she had liked to 8 great white bird, perched upon the mountain side They wound slowly upward through sage brush and chapparal, pausing occa- sionally to look back over the San Gabriel Valley, away to the distant ocean, showing through rift in the hills.
 Bye-and-bye Garcia felt strange and unpleasant qualm, as her burro crept gin gerly around an unusually steep precipice. I The distant tent looked more than ever like bird ready to take wing, and o, so far away.
 The widow in glancing backward ex. claimed at her pale face:
 "A aaz>to faint. Miss Waldo ?''
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