The sandstorm that overwhelmed Stooder and his guide on the Road of the Dead Men brought the mighty voice of the desert to the Garden of Solitude in requiem for the soul of Don Padraic O’Donoju. Savage elegy of a life lived in communion with the spirit of the wild.

There was no priest to order the funeral rites of the Church. Though a day’s journey in Quelele’s car to Caborca and back would have fetched a minister of religion, Benicia was determined word of her father’s death should not reach the man who provoked it sooner than the courses of rumour allowed. The Caborca priest posting out to the Casa O’Donoju would set tongues wagging instantly and the seal of silence imposed by miles of unpeopled space between the casa and the nearest community would be broken. “The service of the heart will be just as acceptable to my father’s spirit,” was Benicia’s simple justification to herself of breach of custom.

So in the heat haze preceding the storm six Indians bore the body of their master through fields of alfalfa behind the white house down to a grove of shimmering alamo trees which fringed a reservoir of the oasis’ precious water. Here beneath the white and silver-green tent of the trees was sanctified ground. Here lay the dust of lords and ladies of a desert principality who, for their spans of years, had been inheritors of the desert’s cruelties and benefices.

Grant fell in with the file of dark-skinned mourners that followed behind the body of Don Padraic, with him Bagley. They did this unbidden of Benicia. Neither had seen her since the dramatic climax of the ordeal of the kettle the day before; no word had come from her. Yet each had felt the need to succour the bereaved girl in her great loneliness, forgetting unhappy events of the dawn in the patio.

For Grant there had been a brief struggle with pride and outraged sensibilities—blessedly brief because a broader tolerance and finer manhood had rallied to overthrow the narrower view of selfishness. In the light of the terrific blow that had been dealt the girl he loved—all the more crushing because of its suddenness—the savage reaction of a high spirit seemed to him not so to be wondered at. Nor Benicia’s silence since. In these dark hours there was no place in her heart for aught but unassuaged grief.

Arrived at the alamo grove, all the Indians of the village and household massed themselves a little way apart from freshly turned sod, their glistening black heads dappled by the silhouettes of the leaves, their eyes restless and awestruck. Benicia, garbed in dull black which made the whiteness of her face and uncovered glory of her hair the more striking, stood at the head of the rude housing fashioned by the Papagoes for her beloved clay; her calm was absolute as that of the iron peaks beyond the oasis green. In her hand was a wreath the Indian women had woven—scarlet flowers of the cactus with feathery acacia intertwined.

In a steady voice the girl read a Latin prayer while the Indians knelt. Then with a lingering touch she laid the scarlet and olive-green wreath upon the pall and watched the glowing spot of colour slowly sink from sight.

Suddenly the recessional: the sand storm with its clamour of incoherent desert tongues crying hidden tragedies, its blinding sheets of sand. When the first blast struck the group turning away from the grave Grant stepped quickly to Benicia’s side, drew her arm protectingly through his and bent his body to shield her from the myriad chisels of the driven sand. He fought for footing for them both.

At his touch Benicia turned dry eyes to his. Swiftly she read the love there—love triumphing over the hurt she had so lately given him. On the instant tears filmed the hard brightness of the orbs Grant looked down upon. Her lips moved in some halting speech of contrition, but the savage blast snatched away the sound of her words. In the softening of those eyes and the weight of her body clinging nervelessly to him the man was told the whole story of a girl’s amends for hasty and unconsidered action. All her iron will which had carried her head high through hours of grief suddenly had sped from her, leaving her groping and dependent.

An exalted sense of guardianship came to Grant—swept over him like a cool breeze to a fever patient. Almost it was a feeling of holy trust bestowed. At last—at last the woman he loved had battled against bitter fate beyond the limit of her endurance and was turning to him to fend for her. Unheeding the twinges his wound gave him, he bent to the blast with his precious burden. Oh, if only he could be given liberty to sweep her into his arms, to call her name in the piety of supreme love, snatch her away from the incubus of dread which had settled upon her so relentlessly.

He would not wait for such opportunity—so the thought came lancing at him in a lightning flash of resolution; he would create it! No longer stand idly by with footless compassion while the girl of his heart remained in chains of a fixed idea too strong for her to break. He himself would free her of those shackles even if he had to fight her fiery will to do it!

While the storm furiously grappled with the palms outside, Bim and Grant sat in the dark music room of the great-house. With hushed voices the two friends conned over the situation facing them and the girl now left alone in the immensity of Altar. Not a simple exigency. On the one hand promptings of delicacy and the dictates of custom ruled against their remaining longer in the Casa O’Donoju. Opposed to this was the alternative of leaving Benicia to become a prey to the schemes of Colonel Urgo—a girl fighting single-handed the craft of an implacable enemy. Without a protector other than the Indians of the oasis—and they had the minds of children—the girl could not combat this unscrupulous wooer for long. What then?

Bim finally summed the situation: “It comes down to this, old side-pardner; either you’ve got to persuade her to come back to Arizona with us mighty pronto or to marry you, putting it bald-headed like.”

Grant’s mind leaped to grapple with the flash of an idea—the one that had come to him when he and the girl breasted the sandstorm. Resolution crystallized on the instant. He silently quizzed his friend with an appraising eye.

“And if I can’t persuade her?” he queried softly.

“Then you simply trundle yourself away from here and up across the Line, knowing that, sure as shootin’, this wolf Urgo’ll be down on her just as soon as he makes up his mind to move.” The big fellow in the firelight stressed inevitability in his dictum. Grant gave him a cryptic smile.

“Suppose I take her anyway if she will not be persuaded?” Bim jerked back his head and surveyed his friend with startlement which speedily softened to a wide grin. Out went his hand to clap Grant’s knee.

“Now you’re tootin’!”

Once he had put his resolution into words, the idea back-fired to scorch Grant with sudden comprehension of what would be involved in such a cavalierly course of action. Actually to steal Benicia O’Donoju! Take her by force from the home which now was hers to rule. Play the very part which he feared Colonel Urgo would pursue if left alone. He scarcely heard Bim rumbling his enthusiasms.

“That’s the pure quill!” the desert man was saying. “That’s the Grant Hickman who brought me in on his back from a section of Heinie’s first line trench with H.E.’s droppin’ round like gumdrops from a baby’s torn candy bag.” He checked himself to launch the question, “Have you got a line on the girl yet? I mean, do you think she fancies you enough to be glad—after you’ve run away with her?”

“I think so,” was Grant’s simple answer.

“Fine business! The sooner the quicker, young fellah. You an’ her an’ me in the li’l old desert skimmer. ’Cause I gotta get back to Arizora. The old Doc’ll think I’ve thrown him down an’, besides, my own business—”

“You mean you’ll go ahead with Stooder on his scheme for finding the Lost Mission?” Grant cut in impetuously. The big love he bore Bagley jealously demanded an answer. The other reached over to lay a hand on Grant’s shoulder.

“No. That’s all off, old son. I couldn’t go prying around after lost treasure that belongs to the girl’s family—more particular not after what you’ve told me I couldn’t. I promise you I’ll head off the Doc if I have to get him thrown in the carcel for boot-legging.”

The storm wore itself to a final sibilant whisper among the tortured palms and the two continued to sit in the room of shadows with the complexities of the daring plan of kidnapping still bulking large. ’Cepcion tip-toed in to announce to Bim in an awed whisper, “El Doctor Coyote Belly from Babinioqui has come through the storm. Shall I disturb the mistress?”

Bim translated to Grant with a questioning tilt of the eyebrows. Grant started at the name of the medicine man who had been his rescuer and to whom he owed his life. What could have brought this old Indian away across the expanse of Altar to drop out of the storm upon the house of mourning?

“Tell her we will see him first,” Grant directed, moved as he was by some half-sensed instinct of protection for Benicia; evil tidings—if such the Indian bore—must be kept from her. The two rose and followed the waddling Indian woman through the halls to the servants’ quarters in the rear. Under a pepper tree in the fading dusk they found the squat figure of Coyote Belly. The Indian doffed his hat at the approach of the white men and stood smiling; there was in his pose something of quiet dignity which bent little before the centuries-old convention of the white man’s superiority. His beady eyes, well larded in creasy folds, possessed intelligence beyond the ordinary.

Grant impulsively took El Doctor’s hand in a strong grip carrying the thanks he could not speak. El Doctor’s eyes mirrored recognition and he bobbed his head with a broadening smile.

“Tell him, Bim, I could not thank him for all he did for me. He is the chap that found me on the Hermosillo road, you know, and pulled me through.” Bim put the words in Spanish and El Doctor bobbed his head again. Then the Indian began haltingly in the same tongue. Bim’s eyes narrowed to a quizzical pucker as he progressed. Grant could read a spreading wonder in his friend’s features.

“The old bird says he came here because he knew Don Padraic had been killed,” Bim repeated. “Says he knew it the night of the murder because a star fell in the west and he saw the picture of the old Don with a knife in his heart—saw it in the water of his medicine olla. So he’s been on the trail ever since because he’s got to tell SeÑorita Benicia something.”

“But,” Grant began incredulously. Bim caught him up with, “Sure, I know it sounds phoney. But I know, too, the old boy’s telling the truth. These desert people have a way of seeing across space—reading signs and such—which leaves us white folks gasping— How’s that?” He turned an ear to El Doctor, who had begun to speak again.

“Standing-White-in-the-Sun was my father and my brother,” the medicine man gravely intoned. “He gave me pinole when I was starving. He came to my house at the festival of the sahuaro wine and drank with me as a brother. His child, Lightning Hair, is as my own child.”

Depth of feeling was sweeping El Doctor like a storm. His grey head trembled and drops of moisture stood in his eyes. Bim gently checked him with, “The seÑorita is oppressed with grief. If we could take your message to her—” But El Doctor shook his head.

“She will see me. She will hear what El Doctor Coyote Belly has come through the storm to tell.”

“Yes, she will hear,” came an unexpected voice from the direction of the doorway, and Benicia walked up to the Indian. El Doctor made a step forward to meet her; with a gesture of reverence he took the hand stretched out to him and placed it first on his brow then over his heart. His old eyes shone. The two white men turned and walked beyond earshot. From a distance Grant saw the girl lead the medicine man to a rustic seat beneath the pepper tree; snatches of barbarous Papago speech came to his ears.

The glory of sunset, more glorious because of the dust held in suspension in the air, came and passed and still Benicia and the medicine man talked beneath the pepper tree. The evening meal was a mournful affair, with only Grant and Bim at the candle-lit table. Grant, unable to contain his restlessness, quit the house alone when supper was finished; he walked down the avenue of palms in the direction of the red fires marking the Indian village. The night was luminous with that sheen which covers the desert heavens like a bloom. Thin rind of a moon hung low in the west, a cold glow of nacre.

He had crossed the bridge and was about to turn off into an adjacent field when he heard a footstep in the shadowed aisle below palm tops ahead of him. A figure scarce discernible in its black garb came upon him.

“Benicia!”

She stopped, startled. “Ah, it is you,” was her murmured greeting as Grant stepped to her side.

“Alone and in the dark,” he chided, but the girl tossed off his fears with a gesture of the hands. “I have been with El Doctor down to the village to find a place for him to lodge.” Grant imprisoned her arm and gently persuaded her steps back down the aisle of darkness toward the village. For a minute they walked in silence. Each knew there were things to be spoken, yet each was reluctant to break the silent communion their nearness wrought.

“And El Doctor gave you the message he came to bring?” finally from Grant. Her head nodded assent.

“Not bad news, I hope,” he hazarded. A tightening of fingers on his arm as she answered, “The best—and the worst.” Grant drew a long breath.

“And may I share with you—the worst?” he managed to murmur. Now once more that dragging weight on his arm as when he guided Benicia through the storm—mute signal of surrender from one spent in the fight.

“El Doctor says—oh, my friend, you must not stay here in the Garden longer. The rurales are gathering at Babinioqui, El Doctor tells me—with Urgo. That means but one thing: Urgo is bringing them here, and you—”

“But you!” Grant interrupted almost fiercely. “What of you? Must I run away and leave you unprotected from that man?” The girl drew away from him as if in very defiance of some mastering impulse which would push her into his arms.

“I—my people will fight for me if need be. Urgo comes for you this time, and I cannot be sure these children”—a vague sweep of her hand toward the winking village fires—“that these children would fight for you, whom they scarcely know.” There was that brave yet pitiful resolution in her tone when she spoke of the hazard of Urgo’s probable sally upon her own person which crashed through all a lover’s carefully built barriers of restraint. Unmindful of the events of recent hours, of the girl’s fresh bereavement, Grant crushed her to him hotly.

“Oh, ’Nicia—’Nicia, can’t you understand! I must go—yes, to-morrow! Not because Urgo is coming to get me but because your being here alone forces me away from you. Yet I cannot think of leaving you to fight that man single-handed. ’Nicia—precious!—you will come—you must come with me up over the Line where—”

“Oh, please—please stop!” Hands were feebly pressing him away. Glint of starlight revealed tears a-tremble on her lashes. “Grant—great heart—I understand. I cry for you. See! My eyes tell you what is in my heart. But I cannot give myself to you when that—that terrible thing of misfortune and death goes with me. I—the mark I bear brought death to my dear father!”

He looked down into her eyes, appalled at this last speech. Before he could hush her she faltered on:

“But El Doctor brought me also good news—wonderful news! It is that I can lift this evil from me if—if”—she seemed to falter before a possibility scarce credible—“if the finding of the gold and jewels El Rojo stained with his sacrilege and their restoration to a sanctuary of the Church will be acceptable in God’s sight.”

The hint of purpose in Benicia’s voice revealed the edge of the truth. “Do you mean El Doctor knows where the Lost Mission lies and that you intend to find it?” Grant pressed her. The girl gave answer:

“He knows where the gold and pearls of the Lost Mission are. He knows, too, the story of El Rojo and how I bear the weight of his guilt. Because he loved my father he says he loves me too much to have me go on and on under an evil spell. Father’s death opens his lips and—”

“You are going with El Doctor to find those things?” breathlessly from Grant. She nodded. “Then I will go with you. At once! To-morrow!”

Decision came on the wings of inspiration. Better this flight into the desert on treasure quest, with its promise of exorcism of all the devils that plagued the girl—better this venture than that other he had determined: to play the strong hand willy-nilly.