The Blood of the Conquerors

  CHAPTER VIII

  In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more andmore to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was allright in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desiredtheir town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy easternhealth-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historicpast were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for alife of "culture, refinement and modern convenience" as the president ofthe Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.

  Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few years before had given wayto aggressively formal balls and receptions; but one form of entertainmentthat was indigenous had survived. This was known as a "_mesa_ supper." Itmight take place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of mountain anddesert. Several auto-loads of young folk would motor out, suitablychaperoned and laden with provisions. Beside some water hole or mountainstream fires would be built, steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterwardthere would be singing and story-telling about the fire, and romanticstrolls by couples.

  It was one of these expeditions that furnished Ramon with his secondopportunity in three weeks to be alone with Julia Roth. The party hadjourneyed to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear water bubbled up in thecentre of the _mesa_. A grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place, andthere was an ancient _adobe_ ruin which looked especially effective bymoonlight.

  The persistent Conny Masters was a member of the party, but he washandicapped by the fact that he knew more about camp cookery than anyoneelse present. He had made a special study of Mexican dishes and hadwritten an article about them which had been rejected by no less thantwenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty of the _enchilada_, which is adelightful concoction of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected arecipe of his own for this dish which he had named the Conny Mastersjunior.

  As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the chaperones were safelyanchored on rugs and blankets with their backs against trees, there was ageneral demand, strongly backed by Ramon, that Conny should cook supper.He was soon absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every step, whilethe others gathered about him and offered encouragement and humoroussuggestion. But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the group, somegoing for wood and some for water, and others on errands unstated.

  Ramon found himself strolling under the cottonwoods with Julia. Neither ofthem had said anything. It was almost as though the tryst had been agreedupon before. She picked her way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass,her skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume from her hair anddress blew over him. He ventured to support her elbow with a reverenttouch. Never had she seemed more desirable, nor yet, for some reason, moreremote.

  Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the great desert stars.

  "Isn't it big and beautiful?" she demanded. "And doesn't it make you feelfree? It's never like this at home, somehow."

  "What is it like where you live?" he enquired. He had a persistent desireto see into her life and understand it, but everything she told him onlymade her more than ever to him a being of mysterious origin and destiny.

  "It's a funny little New York factory city with very staid ways," shesaid. "You go to a dance at the country club every Saturday night and totea parties and things in between. You fight, bleed and die for yoursocial position and once in a while you stop and wonder why.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's a bore.You can see yourself going on doing the same thing till the day of yourdeath.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

  Her discontent with things as they are found ready sympathy.

  "That's just the way it is here," he said with conviction. "You can't seeanything ahead."

  "Oh, I don't think its the same here at all," she protested. "Thiscountry's so big and interesting. It's different."

  "Tell me how," he demanded. "I haven't seen anything interesting heresince I got back,--except you."

  She ignored the exception.

  "I can't express it exactly. The people here are just like peopleeverywhere else--most of them. But the country looks so big and unoccupied.And blue mountains are so alluring. There might be anything beyond them {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}adventures, opportunities.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

  This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but he could agree about themountains.

  "It's a fine country," he assented. "For those that own it."

  "It's just a feeling I have about it," she went on, trying to express herown half-formulated idea. "But then I have that feeling about life ingeneral, and there doesn't seem to be anything in it. I mean the feelingthat it's full of thrilling things, but somehow you miss them all."

  "I have felt something like that," he admitted. "But I never could sayit."

  This discovery of an idea in common seemed somehow to bring them closertogether. His hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously hedrew her toward him. But she seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.

  "You have no right to complain," she told him. "A man can do somethingabout it."

  "Yes," he agreed, speaking a reflection without stopping to put it inconventional language. "It must be hell to be a woman {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} excuse me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Imean.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

  "Don't apologize. It is--just that. A man at least has a fighting chance toescape boredom. But they won't even let a woman fight. I wish I were aman."

  "Well; I don't," he asserted with warmth, unconsciously tightening hishold upon her arm. "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're a woman."

  "Oh, are you?" She looked up at him with challenging, provocative eyes.

  For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered between them like aninvisible fairy presence of which they both were sweetly aware, and no oneelse.

  "Hey there! all you spooners!" came a jovial and irreverent voice from thevicinity of the camp fire. "Come and eat."

  The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone. She turned with a littlelaugh, and they went in silence back to the fire. They were last to enterthe circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon them. She was pink andself-conscious, looking at her feet and picking her way with exaggeratedcare. He was proud and elated. This, he knew, would couple their names ingossip, would make her partly his.