The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1895-01-24

| OOWn Cnc river 1iOAu CAo EuuCn 10
miles, they were both OF then
strangers to he. The man was {
sincwy, good-looking, olive-coloree
young fellow, with bold eyes and &
slight black down just appearing or
his lip He wore the customary enor
nous high-crowned hat, the short en-
broidercd leather jacket and the skin
tight pantaloons with broad stripes
running down them, into which the
youthful Mexican, when he desires tt
look particularly spruce, manages by
some inscrutable process to insert his
limbs. The woman, or rather the girl,
! for she could not have been more tina n
fourteen or fifteen years of age, was
riding in front of him. She was de-
cidedly pretty creature, and was
rather in Il state of deshabille com
| pared will, the smart costume of her
| companion. %%E
| Her thick. black hair was flynn:
loo &C about her face and shoulders and
a br:ilt-colorru cotton gown, but
toned in two or three places across her
bosom. half revealed and half con
cealcI that she was Il woman in form
if she was but child in years. One
knee was crooked over the horn. of the
saddle ;ud her scanty dress, drawn up
by her position. afforded us liberal
view Of pleasing foot and ankle.
quite innocent OF the conventional
shoe and stocking.
The young fellow refined in his horse
in front of us. and, taking Off his great
hat, said, politely, in the SPANS h
tongue, after giving us the usual
greeting: >r'
''Senores, DO You wish to do us the
favor of giving the sonora a little of
water to drink?"
Elgcwortl handed the young woman
dipperful Of water from our jar that
stood in the shade Of the porch and
she drank it OF seerain gly quite .un-
abashe.l at he simplicity of her attire.
The youth declined any water, saying
that they were i'll great haste and,
with ''rnl,c:la:, Crac:as, aaios, senores,'
drove spurs ii. /, lis jailed pony and
went Of to :iic south as fast as he had
CONF.
Billings took his pipe from his
mouth ANA watched the couple vanish
in the dust a:::l mesquite brush.
''i'll bet" he said, ''that's /. runaway
match."
This seemed a plausible hypothesis.
and we fell to wandering where they
hailed from. Ed!,eworth, who knew
the country better than any of us,
said he had never seen the man be-
fore.
But that girls face" he added,
"somehow seems familiar to Inc. Let
me see,': he continued, renectively, adj
dressing his query to nobody in par
ticular, doesn't she belong to old Don
hacienda, up there the
other side of the arroyo San Juan? If
she is a daughter of the old don him
self, am not surprised at the hurry
that the chap seems to be in"
l recollected Don Mauricio His
place was twenty miles up the river.
lie was a wealthy old fellow, as Next
cans go, owned a large tract of land
and flocl:s and herds. and ruled over
his medieros and pastures in true
fashion. We had paid
him visit the year previous on some
stock business, but had no recollec-,
zion of seeing this glrl at that tim e.
memory or his power of
observation was better.
While we were talking about our Wis
tors, we had brought the horses from
the corral and saddled up. Young
Hensley decided to go with us, and we
eft Billings behind ''to hold down the
:anch," in frontier phrase, until our
return. The road we took was the
same by which the runaways hadgone.
We had presently forgot the romantic
apparition of the morning land had
lrifted into the usual staple of stock !
mems talk-the drought, the low price
IF beef cattle and the exorbitant rail-
way charges, and, warming with the
theme, were pronouncing a
general anathema upon the big buy
ers, when we heard the sounds Of fast
ridden horses behind us. The tramp
ng of our own animals and the loud |
chatting of our leather leggings against |
;he saddles had prevented us from
hearing the approach of the riders be-
hind us until they were close upon us,
md as we turned in our saddles to see
Who they were Edgeworth had hardly /
lime to 'exclaim: Don Mauricio, as /
ive!' before they had over taken us. I
There were two of them. One was
evidently shepherd or vaquero of the
ordinary type; the other, as Edge
worth had guessed, was the old Don
himself.
lie was not a reassuring spectacle.
lie must have been a very powerful |
nan in his prime, as his broad Shout
lers and great, square head, with it's
trongly marked features, Indicated. /
His face had been turned by the
iSty years of Texas suns to the COM
'lexion Of negro, the effect of which
vas heightened by contrast with a
'ushy white beard and long white 7
lair that hung down beneath his
'road hat. His eyes, which were
,loodshot from passion or mescal,
we're small and deeply set in his head.
nd their sinister appearance was in
reased by enormous projecting eye
'rows, as white as his beard. Both he
nd his Communion wore belts wi 81,