Toward evening Raquel grew more quiet, and Ana, seeing that the fever was abating, gave herself much blame for sending in such haste for Rafael; and what she had written to him only the good saints could tell, for she had been so frightened she had possibly told him unpleasant things!

However, all things could be endured if only Raquel would open her eyes in reason once more, and lift the load of self-blame from the heart of Ana.

Not only the young girls, but the mistress as well, kept a respectful distance from the room where Raquel lay, adjoining the hall. Her moans and strange words had filled them with dread, but no more so than had the grovelling fear of the old Indian woman. All day she had crouched at the door like a patient animal, waiting the end. Sometimes she muttered to herself in queer Indian words, sometimes she crept to the couch of DoÑa Raquel for a little while, and then back again to the door, always mumbling or praying, and always insisting that the mother of Raquel had come from the grave to tell things, and that the last of the kings was gone now for always!

Any attempt at a question, any interpretation of her mutterings, would arouse her to a realization that she was among new people in a strange land, and her lips would shut in a straight line, to be kept shut so long as she was conscious of their presence.

The Indian servants crept past the door, with fearful eyes fixed in dread. She was of another race and another tongue than their own forebears, straight and slender even in her old age; darkest reddish-bronze in color, while a San Juan grandmother was always fat, and nearly always black. Beside them, Polonia looked almost Caucasian. Yet she proudly denied any white blood; she was an Indian of a hill tribe of the south, the name of which she would not utter.

All this, and her mutterings, and the wild words of her mistress, put terror into the heart of the San Joaquin household. The girls huddled together and whispered tales of witches and ghosts, and thought she looked like each in turn; and DoÑa Ana got great credit for courage in staying in the room with her in the night-time.

But all their vague fears were changed to a definite terror when one of the Indian children found the clay image by the aquia, and in its yet moist members all the pins, for the stealing of which half the children around the ranch had that morning received a taste of the rope's end.

Such a gray-faced, wailing lot as scampered up from the aquia! Girls screaming, old women wailing, and the mothers herding the children out of reach of the accursed thing!

All was explained now, about the sudden awful sickness of the DoÑa Raquel! The Indian woman from the south was a very devil! DoÑa Raquel had perhaps had to whip her some time, and she had waited until she was with her in a strange house to do this thing: that was why she crouched at the door as if on guard; she was afraid some one might enter to pray, or with holy water, or any of the helps of the saints. And after the life had gone from DoÑa Raquel, who could tell that she might not kill others, even all of them on the ranch? Since she had in one hour's time changed her mistress from a well woman to a crazy woman who laughed, how long would it take to do the same for a dozen? Not a day! In a week she could kill them all!

Panic seized the entire herd. They raced in terror for the ranch-house and overwhelmed the mistress with their fears. Her daughters clung together, white-faced at the frenzy facing them. The men were out on the ranch and ranges; Don Enrico was with them, and there was no one to control the dark mob of fanatic faces, any more than one could head a stampeding herd of cattle: that was what terror developed in them—the mad, unreasoning rush of animals to trample underfoot, or tear to pieces, the thing they feared.

The mistress could only gasp, "Pray to God—pray to God!" but her voice was lost in the tumult of the wild chorus. It was too late for prayers; prayers were no good after a devil had got hold of any one! Then there was only one thing to do, and they had the knife for the meat and the axe for the wood! A devil could be burned out, or drowned out, and there was not water enough this side of the sea for the drowning; therefore—

In vain their mistress screamed, and her daughters clung to the bare brown arms of their serving-women. They were thrown aside in the stampede of the savage herd. Let the lady say what should be done with white blood; but this was an Indian, and an Indian of a strange tribe and country!

Even in their panic the bovine cowardly herd remembered that fact; there would be no Indian relatives of the witch to wreak vengeance on them; she was the devil's own, and she had no other kindred!

They tore across the hall, sacred at other times to the family, and Ana, rising in wonder at the tumult, was met at the door by the mob. She retreated to the couch of Raquel, with outstretched arms to protect her guest, as she commanded that they be gone.

Her words were scarcely heard. At the door, crouching, and with covered head, they found her they wanted, and dragged her unresisting through the hall and out into the open.

The mistress, sick and half fainting, stumbled to her own room, and cowered at the altar, with one daughter clinging to her and sobbing, while the other stood at the portal of the patio and called for some of the boys, or a man, or horse for any one who could ride for help and stop the horror.

"Mother of God! They make the fire!" she screamed.

It was true. They were dragging the wood and making ready for a fire. Children followed their mothers, gathering leaves and straw. One black-skinned creature had brought a shovel of coals, and was lying prone on the ground beside it, blowing it with her breath until it glowed and sent demoniac lights into her heavy-lidded eyes. One old hag held the devil's witness, the clay image, before the accused, and after one brief look Polonia made no struggle. It was fate; she had known from the feverish words of DoÑa Raquel that some one must die as sacrifice.

Then she began to croon a strange whining chant, and the hands of those holding her fell away in sudden terror of even the touch of her. Slowly she stumbled to her feet, and looked at the sun, and raising her old hands toward its lowering light, waved them to and fro in weird salutation, never checking the strange song or chant.

Ana had a pistol, and stood in wavering uncertainty as to whether she should run out, or stay on guard beside Raquel; but to the final adjuration she responded as one suddenly aroused from a stupor of fear, and rushing to the little plaza she screamed loudly and then fired two shots in quick succession; then after a deliberate little pause she fired once more, and with pale cheeks turned toward the door, trembling, and waiting.

"God be praised! See, help is coming," gasped Juanita, pointing northward. "Good! The dust—the man on the horse—and how he rides—how he rides!"

Ana watched the rider, fascinated and weak with terror. Juanita was laughing and crying with joy, but her cousin stood pale and motionless, and said not a word as the horseman swept past the garden to the back of the house, where smoke was rolling up in a white cloud.

He was none too soon. The fire was leaping in long tongues from the crackling sycamore boughs. The dark faces of the fanatics were alight with frenzied eagerness for their pious task of destroying a witch before they might be interfered with. They had heard the screams and shots, and knew what they meant, and the log they were tying the witch to was held upright by many willing hands.

Her hands were already tied together; there was nothing left to do but fasten a rope around her at the waist, and toss both log and witch into the hottest corner.

And then Juanita ran screaming toward the group, and back of her rode a man on a fiend of a horse, knocking the pious devotees right and left, and caught up the limp figure of old Polonia and flung it on the saddle in front of him. She opened her eyes and looked at him once as he raised her from the ground, and then closed them and looked no more. It was all of no use—neither the holy water to keep away the thought of him, nor the witchcraft to take the life from him. It was the accursed Americano, and the charm had only served to bring him more quickly!

After the first staggering blow from the stranger's horse, some of the stronger spirits rallied, and lunged forward to drag the woman from her rescuer, while others lashed his horse that it might become uncontrollable. Two able-bodied wenches held on like grim death, despite the quirt which he brought down across their shoulders again and again, while he held the horse and Polonia with one arm.

The animal, between the lashing of the mob and the roaring of the flames, was leaping madly, and the rider had all he could do to control its terror. Any moment a shot, or a club, or a stone thrown at his own head might give them two victims instead of one. That was Juanita's one wild fear. She screamed for Ana with the pistol, but Ana had sunk down, white and trembling on the doorstep, as she saw a black form suddenly appear in the midst of the howling mob of savages. An instant she saw him on the outer edge of the leaping, struggling circle, and the next he was by the head of the horse, and a strong arm struck right and left until there was space enough to show he was a bronzed, bearded man in a priest's habit.

"Back to your kennels, dogs!" he cried, sharply. "Since when have ye dared strike at gentlemen? On your knees, every one of you! On your knees!"

The younger girls and children dropped in the dust, but some of the older were less willing to give up.

"She is a witch, father; she is killing a woman," cried one; "it is right a devil be put in the fire!"

"Then how hot must the fire be made when your day comes!" he replied, and raised his hand and spoke slowly, solemnly, "Thrice heated will that fire be for the thrice-accursed! To your knees, in the name of God!"

With sullen, shamed, disappointed faces, they obeyed. A white man who is a stranger they dared attack, if enough of them were together, but not a priest—a priest who could hit hard enough to knock a bull down.

"That was a close shave, padre," observed the American, with a breath of relief. "They had this poor old wretch almost pulled in two—will you take her?"

The priest made a step forward, and then halted and smiled, as in vague perplexity. "I have not the pleasure of understanding English," he said, gently.

Ana arose and came forward; she was still very pale and still trembling; she looked at the priest and tried to speak, but the words were smothered in a half sob.

"My daughter," he said, quietly, "take courage." Then he glanced at the pistol still in her hand. "It was you who fired? That was right. I was on the hill in the edge of the wood, and it is well you sent that warning. Your American friend said—?"

"Oh, I speak a little Spanish too," remarked Bryton, in that tongue; "it is the woman with the tied hands I wanted you to take."

The padre did so, untying the rope deftly, and steadying her wavering figure, while Bryton slipped from the saddle, and spoke to Juanita, who had the one welcoming face he had seen.

"I know you," she said, eagerly. "Did I not see you at San Juan Capistrano, at Alvara's and at the Mission? I was sure of it. This is my cousin DoÑa Ana and Father—"

"Libertad," the padre interrupted, briefly, and spoke directly to Bryton, "from Mexico."

"You will think us all savages to allow this, father," and she pointed to the huddled Indians and the leaping flames; "but it was all so quick—like that—no one could think! My mother is in hiding from it, and—"

"Father," said Ana, speaking for the first time, "a priest is needed in the house. We have a woman who may be dying. Will you come quickly?"

She was eager to separate the priest from the others, and, her speech was nervous and eager.

"Dying?" he repeated, "is that what they meant when they said the Indian had killed a woman?"

"Yes, father," broke in the quavering tones of old Altagrazia, "here it is—the devil she made!" and she held up the clay image, from which the head had been broken in the mÊlÉe. "One day ago the lady is well and rides like a caballero, and this day the sun goes down and she dies. The Indian from Mexico put on the curse!"

Old Polonia understood, and screamed denials in her native tongue, and then turned to the padre and pointed to the American.

"It is that man!" she cried, shrilly, "he is a devil! He does not die—not for anything! And while he lives he breaks the heart of my mistress. It is he; that is the man! Put on him the curse of the Church, father! Put on him the curse to send him to a desert where he never can find a road again!" The padre smiled grimly. "That is all they use their religion for after a century of Christianity," he observed. "They still stick to their devil-worship, and call on the Church only when they want maledictions or absolution. Woman, you talk like a fool. Did you do this?"

He took the headless clay pin-cushion and held it before him. Polonia flashed one vindictive glance at him and then nodded her head sullenly. It was bad luck to lie to a padre.

"It was to save her," she muttered, "but the Americano is a devil, and nothing kills him."

She turned one glance of hate and fear upon her rescuer, and moved toward the house.

"She means you?" asked the padre.

"Oh, she is crazy, that old Indian," cried Juanita; "always she makes me afraid. The SeÑor Bryton she never perhaps has seen until this minute. That is her thanks that he pull her from the fire!"

The padre turned for one level look at the pale face of Ana.

"Your name is Bryton?" he then said, quietly. "Will you, SeÑor Bryton, see that these savages do not attempt another roasting, while I look to the woman who is dying?"

Bryton turned to Juanita. "Is it so bad as that?" he asked. "The DoÑa Raquel—"

"We think she is better this evening; still, it may be a fever coming; one never knows. Ah! there are my father and the men."

Don Enrico Cordoba and some vaqueros rode madly through the corral and into the place of the huge bonfire and the still kneeling Indians. Now that their white heat of passion was over, they remembered only the beating they would get, and crouched doggedly where the padre had bidden them; the younger ones wept with fear when Juanita told her father the story.

"Holy God!" he shouted in a rage, breaking in on her recital. "In my house to trample on my family and drag a woman to the fire! TomÁs, count every head and remember every name. In three days every one shall be tied to a tree and whipped; if one runs away, she shall be caught and whipped twice,—once here on the ranch, and once on the Mission plaza of San Juan, on a Sunday after mass. You cattle, you dogs, you devils, begone from my sight!"

He struck right and left with the green-hide reata, spurring his horse after those who stumbled along too slowly to suit him, striking old and young alike as they ran wailing with terror at the promises he had made them, and which they knew would be kept. The Mexican master was quite as prone as the Indian servants to find acute methods of torture or punishment.

When all were despatched he rode back, puffing and laughing, to his daughters and guest, with whom he shook hands heartily.

"Holy saints! but we did ride when we saw the smoke; it looked like the house on fire. It winds a man, a ride like that at my age," and he shook his fat sides with laughter. "Come inside and have a glass of whiskey, SeÑor Bryton. We met at the alcalde's last year when the army officers were in San Juan? Yes, I thought so. I am glad you have come to my house, and—who knows—you maybe saved my wife and my daughters as well as the old woman. When these savages get the taste of blood, they are crazy wolves, never fighters in the open, brave only when there is a mob like that. Come in, come in! Juanita, go tell your mother we have a guest who has saved you all. What was it you said of a padre? where is he?"

"With DoÑa Raquel, father."

"She is worse?"

"We do not know, but thanks to the Virgin, she no longer laughs or cries. Ana is there. If she live or die, we all feel the padre has come if the husband do not."

"Humph! Oh, yes, yes, always the priests!" he grunted. "Women can't keep house without the padres. I think I build a chapel for my women; then they can pray all the time to be sure they save my soul," and he laughed skeptically; then he tossed aside his sombrero, and brought bottles and glasses to a little table of marble on the veranda. "Will you have whiskey, or the bottle of wine?"

"I prefer your own wine of the ranch, Don Enrico," and Bryton poured out the white moselle, of which the Cordoba family was justly proud; "I think the padre was also off a journey, seÑor; perhaps a swallow of this fine wine—"

"Oh, let the women alone to look after the wants of the padre," laughed his host. "They own my house when they are in it, though sometimes I never see them. 'How much money do you want?' I say when they come, and that ends my business with the padres! I buy and sell with them and get beaten at monte or malilla, but I let women do the praying with them! Here comes my wife. Refugia, this is the preserver of your house, the SeÑor Bryton. Have some whiskey, dear; you are still pale."

"Pale! Never shall I get over this day. Think of the shame of it! DoÑa Raquel Arteaga has been entertained like a queen by the bishop, and when she honors our home, her servant is dragged out to be burned! The word will go out that we are savages. Enrico, never so long as you live do you leave this house again without a man in it!"

"Surely not. Drink the whiskey, dear, and be composed."

DoÑa Refugia drank the fiery liquor, and appeared to enjoy it very much, but it had not a quieting influence. It rather helped her to remember and recount all the details of her own stages of fear during the stampede of the self-appointed executioners.

"After the night we all had," she lamented, "to have it followed by such a day! God grant that DoÑa Raquel slept or was unconscious through it all. Had she seen those fiends, it might have killed her or brought back the fever. Juanita says a padre has come, which is the one lucky thing."

"SeÑor Bryton came first, which was a more lucky thing," said her husband; "all the saints could not have saved the woman from the fire if he had not come when he did. Such a thing has not happened here in this valley since I was a boy. Have some more of the wine; it will give you an appetite for supper." At the mention of supper his wife remembered that all the help of the kitchen might have deserted the premises under the scourging of Don Enrico's reata, and calling the girls to help, she left the gentlemen to their glasses.

At the hall she halted to ask after Raquel, and in the shadow saw her niece and the padre talking softly. Ana's head was bent as though weeping, and the hand of the padre was smoothing her hair, and his words were reassuring.

"There, there! it is not so bad, after all," he was saying. "You did the best you knew; and now that I am here, there is nothing to do but—"

"Oh, I know," broke in Ana; "you say all this so I will not blame myself. You would do the same if the worst, the very worst, happened."

"It is not going to happen," he said, quietly; then, as he saw DoÑa Refugia in the hall, "Your friend is surely not so dangerously ill as you fear; by to-morrow—"

Ana looked up quickly at his change of tone, and arose to her feet.

"Here is my aunt," she said. "Aunt Refugia, this is a padre journeying south to Mexico. He—he came at the right moment to help SeÑor Bryton, and I have asked him to stay—and—" "Of course," said DoÑa Refugia, promptly. "Thanks to God you are here this night! Show him to the padre's room, Ana, while I see to supper. Is she sleeping?" she asked, nodding toward the couch.

They did not know; she lay with closed eyes most of the time, and they received no replies to queries, but Ana felt that she only slept fitfully, and then her own muttered words were certain to arouse her to a sort of half wakefulness in which she was simply conscious of the presence of some one without caring in the least who it was. The entrance of the mob had not impressed her mind more clearly than the visionary pictures of the night before.

Old Polonia had again crouched outside the door, in the hall, wordless as before, and, except for some slight disarrangement of her clothing, showing less sign than might have been expected of the horrid scene she had been a part of. She had gone in to look at her mistress, had swallowed some wine offered her by Juanita, and with a short guttural laugh had settled herself outside the door as a sentinel—or near enough to hear the slightest call from Raquel.

The priest regarded her sharply and turned to Ana.

"You are certain it was not Estevan's daughter she meant to harm?" he asked, quietly, but not so low but that the sharp ears of the Indian caught the name. She pulled a corner of the mantilla from across her eyes and looked at him.

"Sure," said Ana, "why, she was her nurse, and the nurse of her mother before her. She would make a carpet of herself for Raquel's feet."

"The nurse of her mother before her," said the priest, slowly. "Then she is of that strange hill tribe of the temple mountain, and she herself is not a common Indian. To have been nurse to that family of the priests, means that her own family was entitled to notice. Yet she has followed, in her old age, to a strange land. Yes, it must mean devotion. But why does she dislike the American?"

"God knows! She could not have ever seen him before. I thought she lied."

"The hate in her eyes was no lie," observed the padre. "His presence here was lucky, but it is not explained, any more than is my own. To me it looks—well, as I said, he is in with the officers."

"And it is my fault he has seen you—my fault," murmured Ana. "If you would only go at once—"

"I think not; it is a good chance to watch the gentleman. If I were sure that old woman meant her hate for him—"

He stared at Polonia a moment, and then nodded his head. "I'll take the chance," he decided, and went alone to her and pulled the cover entirely from her face.

"Friend of a daughter of many kings," he said, slowly.

She stared at him, and stumbled to her feet in salutation.

"It is true, my father, but the kings of the hills are dead; and now," pointing toward Raquel, "there will be no more in the land."

"Who knows?" said the strange padre. "There still lives a daughter; guard her better than you did her mother when I carried love messages from Estevan."

"Ai! I know you now. You have become padre, and you guard her from the heretics—the heretics, father," and she pointed toward the veranda where Don Enrico and his guest could be heard in conversation. "That accursed Americano—"

"Sh—h! quiet, you!" and he placed a hand on her arm authoritatively; "make no noise, say no words, but watch him all the time—every time when I am out of sight. Understand?"

She glanced from the padre to Ana, who nodded her head, and at once the dark old face was illuminated; at last she was not alone in this strange land! Others were here who hated the Americano, and that made them her kindred. She caught the hand of the padre and pressed it to her forehead.

"I watch always," she promised, fervently; and to herself she thought, "After all, we get him killed some way, if the padre, who was a soldier, helps."

They left her in her chosen place, crouched in the hall just outside the door of Raquel, content at last that she was not alone in her hatred of the man whom she blamed for the weary hours of wretchedness lived through by her mistress.

Ana showed the padre to the room set aside always for the use of such priests as travelled from San Gabriel to San Juan. They were not so many of late years, but in this house they were always honored guests, no matter what their order, or land, or language.

"I am afraid—afraid!" said Ana, as she opened the door; "if some one should come who knows—"

"No one will," he said, reassuringly, "and this may be a good chance to learn much. Go, help your aunt, and forget to fear."

Ana sighed, but went as he bade, to the kitchen, where DoÑa Refugia was doing her best to make amends for the distraction of the cooks. They were like big, fat, frightened children, not one of them of any use that night.

Still, there chanced to be enchilladas made the day before, and the tortillas took but a little while to bake, and the bonfire in the yard had settled to a bed of gleaming coals where the beef could be barbecued with no delay but the sending of some girls to the creek for spears of peeled willow. Ana glanced out and saw them squatted peacefully around the red heap, turning the poles on which the strips of beef were hung, as phlegmatic as though they had not howled for a human roasting there not an hour ago.

Juanita had made the table look very nice, in honor of the strange American guest who had followed her call and saved the family from the disgrace of such a killing.

He filled her girlish ideal of the heroic, and she was not like some women who thought that California girls should marry only their own race: a big American husband seemed the finest thing in the world to Juanita.

So there were red geraniums on the table, and yellow poppies, and the best new plates brought from a steamer at San Pedro but a month before; they were a bright blue, and Juanita thought the color combination very fine indeed. She ran to put on a new dress, that the stranger might not think they all looked as if the house had been wrecked. Ana, for a wonder, was indifferent to her own personal appearance, and kept on an old black dress with not even a collar of lace to break its severity.

Don Enrico showed Bryton to a room where he could wash and brush a bit, but so interested was he in his chance guest, that he remained at the door chatting affably, and recounting the word he had received that day that Flores and his men had made a big fight with some cattle people over in Sonora, and had either got a boat at San Onofre and gone out to sea, or else they were somewhere in the San Juan mountains, and of course had spies on the outlook for the marshal or the army men. Don Enrico himself thought it time for the army men to interfere—there were many army men in Los Angeles, and this was no longer a county affair.

"But the devil of a trouble in this country is that too many Mexican men, and women too, will help to hide Flores's men because of Capitan, who has never yet taken a peso from a Mexican, except the Arteagas, and who never fails to strip an American if he starts on his trail. They like that, these Mexicans, whose men fought the Americanos; they are not strong enough to fight in the open, but they like to help this vagabond Capitan, who should have been priest instead of bandit, and who keeps up their fight for them under cover."

He had entered the dining-room while talking, and so interested was he in his pet complaint against the troublesome outlaws, that he did not notice the tall black figure by the side of his wife.

"Uncle, this is Padre Libertad," said Ana, almost timidly. Don Enrico did not like priests in general; he made the mistake of classing them all with the Catalonian padre of San Juan, whom he disliked so much that he would not eat at the same table. His women folks never knew how he would receive a man of the Church until he was proven to his taste.

However, the good American whiskey had put him in a cordial mood, and he nodded amiably as he took his seat.

"A good day to you, padre," he said. "You tramped a long way in the dust to find trouble, did you? Well, the women are thanking the saints you came at the right time, you and SeÑor Bryton. So it is all very well, and God send that the fight gave you an appetite."

And evidently something did, for the priest ate like a vaquero off the ranges. Don Enrico felt a growing respect for the man who could eat more barbecued meat than himself, and drink as much red wine. In fact, all did ample justice to the beef of the bonfire built for old Polonia,—all except Ana,—who still looked pale and uneasy, and Bryton, who made a pretence of eating, but who refused a second glass of wine, a thing the padre noticed with a smile, and their host commented on vigorously.

"You can't drink—you Americans," he insisted; "and look at your plate,—not half empty! It takes students and brain-workers like the padre and me to spoil a side of beef! You are Spanish and of Mexico, padre?"

"No, not even my grandfather came from Spain; so I cannot claim to be Spanish," said the padre. "I claim only to be Mexican."

"And good enough too! Across the line, do these bandits of ours make much trouble these days?"

"No one has complained to me of them. You say they take most from the Americano, but in our country there are no Americano ranches yet; we do not expect to find them there for many years."

"Well, Capitan does go down there sometimes," insisted Don Enrico; "I've heard of it. His family meant him for the Church, but the young devil ran away and joined the army with his elder brother. The Americans shot Roberto; this one was only a boy then, light-weight to ride, and he carried despatches, and never went back to the Church. Oh, he is Californian, all right,—is cousin to half the country. He is—what relation should he be to us, Refugia?" "He is second cousin to me," said Ana.

"So if you hear of him being in trouble for his soul, say a prayer for him, padre, on account of his loyal cousin," said Juanita, and laughed teasingly; but Ana lifted troubled, dark eyes to the padre's face.

"Do so, father," she said, simply; "for the sake of his soul, remember me!"

"These women!" laughed her uncle; "they are always troubling us about our souls, padre. Don't let them spoil your supper with a list of prayers!"

"And what would become of some of your souls if we women did not say the prayers?" retorted his wife. "God knows, Capitan needs them."

"We all need them," said the priest, quietly.

"Still, I always have understood that he is the whitest of the bunch," observed Bryton.

"There are, then, different shades of blackness?" asked the padre. "I believe the law holds all equally guilty."

"El Capitan's motives, at least, have been different, and it has come to be understood that when extremely brutal things have occurred on their raids, Capitan is never of the party."

"Is it so? I did not know you Americanos gave Mexicans credit for such negative virtues?"

Bryton looked up quickly. There was a mocking light in the eyes of the padre, and he was smiling across the table. The smile puzzled Bryton as much as the quick alarm in the eyes of Ana. Was she afraid of controversy over the still warm question of Mexican and United States rights?

"I think that, individually, we give each other credit," he replied, "especially to the fighters. It is only the political schemers who make the troubles between the two factions. As for Capitan, he has too much daring not to force admiration even from the people he dislikes."

Ana flashed a grateful glance at him, and a slight flush crept to the forehead of the padre; he gulped down the contents of his glass, and pushed back his chair.

"Do you fear any trouble with those Indians to-night?" he asked, abruptly. "Had I better speak with them?"

"It is better, perhaps, that we say a rosary, and bring them together that way," observed DoÑa Refugia; "it is the best way. I will have Pedro ring the bell—"

Ana slipped out of the dining-room beside the padre.

"You will?" she asked.

"Surely; a rosary is easy. Why do you look so frightened? Your Americano will not eat me." "But you don't like him?"

"What does that matter? At least, he says no harm of a man behind his back, and it is true what he says of the politicians. Oh, if he keeps up the compliments, who knows but that we may be good friends yet—after he has paid for the horses he took north? Chut!—that is only jest! Smile a little and help to corral the Indians."

Bryton, with Juanita beside him, had sauntered again to the veranda. Passing the door of the hall, he noticed Polonia still crouched there, and Juanita shuddered and drew away.

"I am always frightened at her," she confessed; "not alone would I go in a room where she is at dark for all the gold they say there is in Trabuco Mountain. It is not so strange to me that the poor creatures were afraid and thought her a witch. If you had heard the DoÑa Raquel all last night, you also would have thought only witchcraft could make her so suddenly fall sick with a heart-ache for a ring that would save her, and a temple where a sacrifice was. Truly, it was pitiful—her cries. I pulled the pillow over my ears. Only Ana was brave enough to stay close to her,—Ana and the old mummy."

"And DoÑa Ana—she thought what of it all—the madness—the—" "Oh, Ana has no love for Rafael; she blames him in some way; and it may be that he does make trouble for his wife—he would not be an Arteaga else. But she never mentioned his name in all her cries, never once. She called always—always for the ring, and laughed that some one who wore the ring was again alive. Oh, it was all of queer crazy things like that—ghostly things—she made laments for. It was like purgatory to hear her, yet Ana was not afraid. She has courage, that girl!"

"She is asleep now?" he asked, suddenly.

"Who—Ana? why—"

"No, no, I mean DoÑa—I mean the sick lady. She is better—or—how?"

"She notices nothing, and says nothing, but she does not scream for some one who was dead and is now alive, as she did last night, when she laughed and wept; so I think that means the herb teas have checked the fever. Do not you?"

Just then the bell rang in the patio for the rosary, and Juanita, with a word of apology, slipped away, saying diffidently, "Though you are welcome to come and pray with us,"—divided between her wish to have him, and her reluctance to make it obligatory on a heretical guest to attend their services.

"I shall pray with you," he said, simply, "but I shall remain here. My presence might not have a soothing effect on your servants. I shall smoke a cigar here on the terrace until you return."

Juanita blushed. She would rather have lingered there herself than joined the others. The dusk was coming on; a few last bars of red lay along the sky line to the west where the sea was, and at that hour there was no corner so delightfully appealing as the great veranda where the gold-of-Ophir roses made a lattice of green and yellow against the warm sky.

Ana entered and lit a candle in the hall and another in the room of Raquel, and went out again with a quiet nod to the American guest pacing the veranda aimlessly, and smoking one of Don Enrico's prime cigarros.

When she had disappeared, he sauntered as aimlessly through the hall to the patio where the dark people were gathered with bent heads, murmuring responses sullenly, scarcely daring to lift their eyes to the group on the veranda.

A few candles had been lit along the wall where the shadows were deepening, and in their soft light Bryton could see Don Enrico and all the men of the ranch—vaqueros and ploughmen alike—kneeling back of the women, and the red light yet showing through the gray of the ashes where the flames had leaped so lately.