FullReads

“Go, put on your own clothing. Then stand before your father.”

“Yes, dear,” chimed in Colonel Kate soothingly, “you must seem very strange to him in that dress,–scarcely like his daughter. Put on your native costume and come back to us quickly.”

Barbara went to her room and Mrs. Coolidge began to tell her visitor, with her most charming enthusiasm and with all the delighted expletives which her knowledge of Spanish made possible, of Barbara’s success, of her love affair, and of how very desirable the match would be. The old man listened quietly to the end, looked at her steadily for a moment in silence, and then spoke:

“No!”

Colonel Kate’s eyes opened wide in amazement at the word. “What! Don Ambrosio! Surely–“

“He wishes to marry her?” the old man broke in.

“Indeed he does! He told me so scarcely ten minutes ago. He is very much in love with her and she with him!”

“No!” repeated the Indian emphatically. “It cannot be!”

“Surely, senor, you do not understand! You could not find a more desirable husband for Barbara! Why, he is a lieutenant in the army, a first lieutenant, too, and his position will take her into any society she wishes to enter. He has money enough to keep her well, and he loves her devotedly!”

“No! He forgets she is an Indian! He has seen her in all these clothes of the white women in which you have tricked her out, and he thinks she is the same as a white woman. She is not. She was born an Indian, and an Indian she must be until she dies. Never again shall she leave Acoma.”

“Senor! How can you be so blind to your daughter’s interests? You will break her heart! Surely you cannot be so cruel!”

But Mrs. Coolidge’s protests were broken off by Barbara’s return. The girl stood before her father with her eyes on the floor and her face cold and impassive. She was dressed again in the garments she had worn when she first entered the house, three months before, and she seemed a far different creature from the happy and radiant girl to whom her lover had but just said good-bye. Ambrosio looked her over approvingly.

“Now you are my daughter. Come.”

With the pueblo children centuries of training have caused unhesitating obedience to parents to become an instinct. So Barbara did not question, but at once followed her father toward the door. Mrs. Coolidge was weeping. Barbara threw both arms around her neck and kissed her again and again. The girl’s face was expressionless and there were no tears in her voice, but her wide, black eyes, paling now to brown, told the agony that was in her heart.

“Tell him,” she whispered in English, “that I must go back. My father bids me, and I must go. My father will never again let me leave Acoma. Tell him I shall never see him again, but I shall love him always.”

“My poor child!” sobbed Mrs. Coolidge. “We must find some way to bring you back!”

“It is useless to try. I know my father, and I know it will be impossible for me ever again to leave the pueblo. I must be an Indian all the rest of my life. But I shall love him always. Tell him so.”

“Come!” called Ambrosio from the portal.

Half an hour later the train was carrying them back to Acoma. Colonel Kate at once sent a note to Barbara’s lover, telling him what had happened. But the messenger, being a small boy, met other small boys on the way, and by the time the young officer read the news the Indian girl was well on her way toward home.

Lieutenant Wemple applied for leave of absence, and as soon as possible he followed old Ambrosio. At Laguna, where he left the railroad, he hired a horse and inquired the way to Acoma. It was the middle of the night, but he refused to wait for daylight, and started at once across the plain, galloping as though life and death depended on his mission. In the early morning he reached the great rock-island of Acoma, towering four hundred feet above the plain, and climbed the steep ascent to the village on its summit. A file of maidens, and among them his lover’s eye quickly sought out Barbara, were coming from the pool far beyond, carrying water jars upon their heads, graceful as a procession of Caryatides. Wemple found his way to Ambrosio’s door, where the old chief was sitting in the early sunlight. As he stopped his horse Barbara came up the street, her tinaja poised on her head. One swift and frightened flash of her black eyes was all the recognition she gave him as she hurried into the house.