The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-30
JUANA'S ORDEAL.

Juana walked slowly down the path that
led from the kitchen door of the quaint
house to the more sequestered barn. From
here the path led on along the road, in and
ont among apricot and fig trees, until it
stopped abruptly, as if quite worn out with
its exertions, on the outskirts of the ranch.
Juana paused moment, then gathering
her skirts tightly in her left hand she be-
gan to climb the steep trail. She took it
without languor or delay, her strong young
figure moving upward with scarcely a
pause for breath till she reached the top.
Here an old fence bounded the hill pas
ture belonging to Juana's father. She
flung herself lightly against the bars of the
gate to rest and to gaze upon the scene
spread out below.
On the east the long dusty road was
fanked by ranches more or less cultivated
Here and there symmetrical rows of beans
met the eye. Olive trees mingled with
walnuts were scattered everywhere. Occa-
sionally red tiled adobe relieved the mo-
notony of open pasture lands and fields
dotted with oaks and yellow with tue bios
SONS of the golden mustard.
From the foothills rose p~ecipitately the
purple mountains, whose crests are often
yelled with clouds of feathery mist. A fair
land, and dear to the rancher's daughter
from her babyhood-the place of her birth
and of her people before her. Yet to any
one else who had been there the most pict-
uresque thing would not have been the out
spread landscape, but the young Spanish
girl leaning on the worn gate to look at it.
She turned now, and began a series of
low, coaXing whistles, which presently
brought her favorite mustang, Pedro, to
the bars of the gate. The gate posts were
worn smooth by the rubbing of patient an
finals from the adjoining field, and had it
not been for the friendly hay rope about
their rickety tops Pedro would have surely
knocked them down as he stretched his
neck over the bars to De caressed by his
mistress.
They were a pretty picture-the two
The blue-black hair of the girl made more
vivid the ripe color in her olive tinted
cheeks. Her deep, lustrous eyes had in
them that half panied, half pathetic ex-
preston peculiar to the eyes of the Span
ish girls of the south. Yet Juana knew
little of sorrow The old rancher's only
daughter, she had lived petted life. She
was a simple hearted child, and whatever
capacity for endurance or courage lay with
in her it had never been tried.
After a series of vigorous pats, bestowed
with many a cooling Spanish phrase of en-
dearment upon her favorite, Juana pro-
duced rosy apple from her pocket, which
Pedro munched with evident satisfaction
She had not come to ask any service of
him, only for a morning greeting, AMI
now, after lingering farewell pat or two,
she left the pretty mustang looking over
the gate after her, and turned to the steep
walk again.
She stepped carefully. for fear of tread
ing too heavily on the crumbling, sun baked
adobe and getting tumble; her light feet
made hardly a sound to be noticed among
the noises of the country morning-Pedro's
reluctant return from the gate to his graz
ing fellows, the other sounds from the pas
ture, the twittering of birds, the chirping
of squirrels, the thousandfold murmur
and breath of the hour.
Half way down, the light steps stopped
suddenly, and the girl stood with a startled
face, listening. Only keen ear and a
quick attention could have caught, above
all those other noises, that singular and
unusual one for such a place and time
the hiss of whispering voices PABLO
her fathers nanle-that was the one word
she had caught, and half in curiosity, half
in fear, she felt she must know why her
fathers whispered name should thus de-
tach itself from the rustic of leaves to
strike her ear and call her attention to the
otherwise indistinguishable murmur going
on in the little clump.
She leaned silently forward on the edge
of the hay screen of live oaks, every nerve
strained to catch the half whispered, half
murmured words that rose from within.
The screen, though it offered no percep-
tible barrier to sound, was quite dense
enough to protect the girl from sight of
the men who stood close together behind
it, looking for no one in her direction.
'Pablo''-her fathers name again. and
now it came TO her ear sharply, mingled
with other words. Stage "coin'-"ar-
rest'-she caught; and then in an excited
tone, which the others Immediately
hushed, pistols"
She edged closer, listened more intensely,
and her hearing seemed to become keener.
She knew who the men were well enough
ranch hands of Pahlo's, halfbreeds. a
vagabond set, who would do anything for
money. But they were purposeless and
dull. incapable of organizing and carrying
out plot 10 rob the stage of themselves.
And the holder rogue, who planned and in
spired the crime? The girl was left in no
doubt of shat-her own fathers name was
distinctly uttered, his directions repeated.
That very night he and his confederates
were TO lie in wait for the stage that left
Santa Barbara for Los Angeles at half past
Go'clock.
Juana drew back. realizing that she must
slip away undetected, yet too startled and
Mortified TO think of anything else clearly.
She was overcome by the sheer sense OF her
fathers guilt. He was by no means an ex-
emplary ranchman. Juana we'll knew. But
she had no mother and had depended sole
ly on him for care and tenderness, which
he had given, at least in sufficient measure
TO win the response of a child's simple and
uncriticising affection. and Juana was not
far enough from childhood 10 have changed
much in her feelings. Nor was the code OF
her people so exacting toward ordinary
faults and III 6oinCs of men that what she
knew of her fathers had affected her with
any strong feeling of shame. or given any
serious shock to her regard for him
But this WAS a different matter. The
quiet. honest ranchers of Csrpenteris were
not of that class of Mexicans in whom a
robber excites as much admiration As cen
sure, nor were these the times in which
the native Californian easily excused rob
berry OF the American intruder. Juana mad
been born and had grown up, peacefully
and without thought OF hostility, under
American laws. The plot stood out in lis
reckless criuainality, its shameless gracl