第48章

The rest of that interview has not been recorded.Suffice it that a few minutes later Parks, Brace, and Saunders left the Emporium, and passed the night in the latter's cabin, leaving the Emporium in possession of Miss Mendez and her peon servant; that at the earliest dawn the two women and their baggage were transferred to the old adobe house, where, however, a Mexican workman had already arrived, and with a basketful of red tiles was making it habitable.

Buckeye, which was popularly supposed to sleep with one eye on the river, and always first repaired there in the morning to wash and work, was only awake to the knowledge of the invasion at noon.The meeting so confidently spoken of the night before had NOT been called.Messrs.Parks and Brace were suffering from headaches--undoubtedly a touch of tule chill.Saunders, at work with his partner in Eagle Bar, was as usual generous with apparently irrelevant facts on all subjects--but that of the strangers.It would seem as if the self-constituted Committee of Safety had done nothing.

And nothing whatever seemed to happen! Thompson of Angels, smoking a meditative pipe at noon on the trail noticed the repairing of the old adobe house, casually spoke of it on his return to his work, without apparent concern or exciting any comment.The two Billinger brothers saw Jovita Mendez at the door of her house an hour later, were themselves seen conversing with her by Jim Barker, but on returning to their claim, neither they nor Barker exhibited any insurrectionary excitement.Later on, Shuttleworth was found in possession of two bundles of freshly rolled corn-husk cigarettes, and promised to get his partner some the next day, but that gentleman anticipated him.By nightfall nearly all Buckeye had passed in procession before the little house without exhibiting any indignation or protest.That night, however, it seemed as if the events for which the Committee was waiting were really impending.

The adult female population of Buckeye consisted of seven women--wives of miners.That they would submit tamely to the introduction of a young, pretty, and presumably dangerous member of their own sex was not to be supposed.But whatever protest they made did not pass beyond their conjugal seclusion, and was apparently not supported by their husbands.Two or three of them, under the pretext of sympathy of sex, secured interviews with the fair intruder, the result of which was not, however, generally known.But a few days later Mrs."Bob" Carpenter--a somewhat brick-dusty blonde--was observed wearing some black netting and a heavily flounced skirt, and Mrs.Shuttleworth in her next visit to Fiddletown wore her Paisley shawl affixed to her chestnut hair by a bunch of dog-roses, and wrapped like a plaid around her waist.The seven ladies of Buckeye, who had never before met, except on domestic errands to each other's houses or on Sunday attendance at the "First Methodist Church" at Fiddletown, now took to walking together, or in their husbands' company, along the upper bank of the river--the one boulevard of Buckeye.The third day after Miss Mendez' arrival they felt the necessity of immediate shopping expeditions to Fiddletown.This operation had hitherto been confined to certain periods, and restricted to the laying in of stores of rough household stuffs; but it now apparently included a wider range and more ostentatious quality.Parks' Emporium no longer satisfied them, and this unexpected phase of the situation was practically brought home to the proprietor in the necessity of extending the more inoffensive and peaceful part of his stock.And when, towards the end of the week, a cartload of pretty fixtures, mirrors, and furniture arrived at the tienda, there was a renewed demand at the Emporium for articles not in stock, and the consequent diverting of custom to Fiddletown.Buckeye found itself face to face with a hitherto undreamt of and preposterous proposition.It seemed that the advent of the strange woman, without having yet produced any appreciable effect upon the men, had already insidiously inveigled the adult female population into ostentatious extravagance.