The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley

But not for all time, believed they. They lived in hope of a restoration.

Nor were they disappointed; for it came. The pronunciamento delayed was at length proclaimed, and carried to a successful issue. Once again throughout the land of Anahuac had arisen a “grito,” its battle cry “Patria y Libertad!” so earnestly and loudly shouted as to drive the Dictator from his mock throne; sending him, as several times before, to seek safety in a foreign land.

Nor were the “Free Lances” unrepresented in this revolutionary struggle; instead, they played an important part in it. Ere it broke out, they who had fled the country re-entered it over the Texan border, and rejoining their brethren, became once more ranged under the leadership of Captain Ruperto Rivas, with Florence Kearney as his lieutenant, and Cris Rock a sort of attaché to the band, but a valuable adjunct to its fighting force.

Swords returned to their scabbards, bugles no longer sounding war signals, it remains out to speak of an episode of more peaceful and pleasanter nature, which occurred at a later period, and not so very long after. The place was inside the Grand Cathedral of Mexico, at whose altar, surrounded by a throng of the land’s élite, bells ringing, and organ music vibrating on the air, stood three couples, waiting to be wedded.

And wedded they were! Don Ruperto Rivas to the Condesa Almonté, Florence Kearney to the Doña Luisa Valverde, and – José to Pepita.

Happy they, and happy also one who was but a witness of the ceremony, having a better view of it than most of the spectators, from being the head and shoulders taller than any. Need we say this towering personage was the big Tejano? Cris looked on delightedly, proud of his comrade and protégé, with the beautiful bride he had won and was wedding. For all it failed to shake his own faith in single blessedness. In his eyes there was no bride so beautiful as the “Land of the Lone Star,” no wife so dear as its wild “purairas.” And to them after a time he returned, oft around the camp-fire entertaining his companions of the chase with an account of his adventures in the Mexican valley – how he had there figured in the various rôles of jail-bird, scavenger, friar, and last of all as one of the Free Lances.

The End