The dark was falling when the two girls reached the sheep-herders' cabin in Trabuco. JosÉ, the boy with the pack-mules and the led horse, had arrived before them, and, shaking with fear, had built a fire with which to banish the threatening shadows. No herders were there, and to stay in the isolated caÑon with the mule and mustang was not to his taste. JosÉ belonged to the Mission garden work, or the driving of the cows to pasture, and had little relish for the adventurous life of the ranges. He appreciated not at all the confidence placed in him by the laughing DoÑa Ana.

But Ana had no desire to trust an older man, even an Indian, and when they reached the cabin she delighted his soul by giving him a gold piece, the first he had ever earned, and telling him to go straight back to San Juan; and unless he wanted his own ears to wear on a string around his neck, he was to utter no word of having seen any one at the sheep-herders' cabin. His task was over when he left the provisions and extra horses there.

Glad enough to escape so easily from the prospect of a night where wild cats and mountain lions were no strangers, JosÉ not only promised, but swore by the Virgin and Jesusita that no one at San Juan should be the wiser for his having seen the ladies in that devil of a caÑon. If they never came out alive, he would confess to the padre before All Souls' Day, but until then not a word would they get from him even by whippings and salt water!

Despite the fervor of his protestations, Ana rode up the terrace of the mesa, and sat there watching the trail along the creek until she saw him cross far below, a moving dot against the yellow stretch of sand, and knew that he was indeed moved by winged fear and had none of the courage for spy's work.

Raquel watched the first star break through the blue, and knew that, if he was alive, somewhere in the width of California a man watched it also, and shut out for one brief instant any crowding humanity surrounding him. It seemed a very far-away thing, this tryst of the star, and never—never, any day of her life, durst she dream of bringing it closer.

Ana found her huddled in the crooked white arm of a great aliso tree, and regarded with dismay the quivering shoulders and face hidden against the white bark.

"Raquelita!" she said, in quick contrition. "I have asked too much of you, to ride with me blindfold into the wilderness. Say so, and ride back while it is yet light to reach the road. It was wrong to ask you to share burdens of others. I am at your feet, darling. Do not blame me too much, for—"

Raquel lifted her head and looked at her, and smiled through tears.

"Anita mia, you cannot send me back, for I will not go. Do not fancy me unhappy because—oh—because of anything. I feel, here in the open, more at home than any moment since I came to California. We were of the hill folk, my mother's people, and out under the stars in the night all their old buried instincts awake in me—the pagan gladness of the wilderness."

"You do not look glad," said Ana, doubtfully.

"Child, child! who of us is glad with unmixed gladness, after the door has been closed on our youth and the dreams of youth?"

She slid from her perch and slipped her hand through her friend's arm.

"But to-night, beloved, we will close other doors—the doors of the world of people. This tree shall be the last landmark; beyond this we ride over enchanted ground, and fancy all wild sweet things of our destination. You go to—to your lover, perhaps; and I—I ride to dream dreams in the open."

"But, Raquelita—"

"Never fear they will lead us too far astray, the harmless dreams," she laughed. "If they do, I shall do heavy penance; be sure of that!"

"You look like a witch, instead of a devotee, in this half-light," observed Ana. "Your eyes are like stars; and—what has wakened in you this wild mood? Is it the wilderness alone?"

"Not quite," acknowledged Raquel, demurely. "Since you will have a definite cause, I will confess, Anita mia, that it was the white, strong arms of—of—never look so frightened, dear,—of my friend the aliso tree!"

They both laughed, but Ana sat a moment by the little camp-fire and stared at her.

"That is all very well, and you have your good fun with me," she said; "but out here you are a different person from the lady of your cloisters. Yet nothing has happened to make you different—nothing, except that we are in the open."

"Nothing? O thou wise one!" mocked Raquel. "But a star shone out, and its rays bewitch people sometimes, when it shines down into the heart until the radiance there is too great for one little bosom to hold; and it trembles to the lips, and all the eager longings of the world are understood, and one feels very, very close to one's own soul; and one feels that just beyond that star, or just beyond the bend of the trail up here, one might find it. So, let us ride hard and fast, my Anita,—I to my bewitched fancies, and you to your lover."

"And I—I thought you did not understand!" muttered Ana. "That was because never before have I seen you without the hedges of people about you. God forgive Rafael Arteaga, who has known and ridden away!"

"Hush!" said Raquel; "our outer world is on the other side of the aliso tree. That is our plaza, and this the inner court. Life itself has the same divisions: all the world may cross the plaza, but the inner court of one's own soul is the sanctuary, where only one may kneel beside us; it is the tabernacle of the heart, and no word of Church or your own will can give to anyone the key, or—Santa Maria!—take it out of the hands to which it is given by divine right!"

"Raquel, beloved!" cried Ana, in dismay, "you are not laughing at me now. You make my heart ache with your words and your smile,—more with the smile, I think. And what you say is—is almost sacrilege. No Spanish mother teaches her daughter that the sacrament of the Church is not, above all things, binding. Those who break it are taught the sin of it."

"But I had no Spanish mother to teach me; only a priest and an old Indian woman. The nuns never spoke of the worldly ties, they were so sure I should never know them."

"But, Raquelita, you rode gladly north to Rafael; you—"

"Yes; I was more a devotee than I ever shall be again," acknowledged Raquel, with a sigh. "I remember the elated, half-dreamlike way in which I rode over those mesas to meet him. I was riding to help to guard a wonderful soul and a wonderful life for the Church. I was upheld by the conviction that God desired it. If, instead of asking me to marry a husband for the good of a soul, they had asked me to ride my horse into the sea and wait for the rising tide, and given as convincing a churchly reason, I should have ridden into the sea and waited, I suppose. It is bad for one when the dreams go, and the clear vision begins." "But Rafael—"

"Rafael, beloved, is contented with the life of the plaza. He will always be; and—the inner court is forever this side of the aliso tree. Come! The stars are thick now, and if we have far to ride—"

DoÑa Ana untied the mule and the mustang.

"I think they will follow; but it is best, perhaps, to keep a rope on the mustang. I will lead him, and I have a bell I will tie later to his neck; it may help in the dark if we should go wide of the trail."

The wilder mood of Raquel in the great out-of-doors, where she became something besides the girl of the cloisters, had a sobering effect on Ana herself. A girl who would sacrifice herself through a temporary religious fervor was not one to look with favor on any sacrifice or risk for heretics. Again and again she thought of the letter to the Americano on which that message had been pencilled. She thought also of the words of friendship uttered by Padre Libertad for the same American, at the San Joaquin ranch. Was it that the latter was dead, and thus his letters accessible? Or was there a chance that the man whom Don Eduardo and his guests were to start in search of was held either by a friend or an enemy in the hills they were riding to?

She had felt sure, without hearing it put into words, that Raquel rode from the ranch that night to avoid Mrs. Bryton. What other reason could there be? Therefore, was it fair to lead her blindfold to meet another of that heretic family, to whom she would not open her door even to please her husband? They had mounted their horses when the certainty that it was not fair came upon Ana, and she slipped from the saddle and stirred up the sulking embers of the little fire until it broke into a blaze.

"Raquel, it is no use! I must tell you before we start. The man I go to see is the friend of a heretic whom you bar out from your knowledge. The message sent me is written on a letter of Bryton's. You heard them say SeÑor Bryton cannot be found; and there is a chance—only a chance—that he may be in the mountain where we are going."

Raquel stared at her, and did not speak. In the flickering light Ana could see that her eyes grew large—with dread, or anger, or what? Even her lips grew pale, and she almost seemed to sway in the saddle.

"Raquelita mia, I was wrong, I know it was wrong to bring you; but oh, my beloved—"

"You—did not know—he—was here?"

"I did not think. The devil put mud where my brain should be! It is only when we are on the road it commences to trouble me; and now your words—your—Oh, I know that of all women in California, you hate the heretics most; and now it is I who—"

"Tell me what the letter says," interrupted Raquel, who now sat erect in the saddle, rigid and white. "You said your friend was hurt and—"

"Some one is hurt; I do not know who. You can read the letter if you bend down here. Who knows? It may be his American friend."

"Mother mia! It may be, it may be!"

She covered her face with her hands, and Ana, looking at her, thought she was praying for strength to remember humanity ahead of the creeds. At last she spoke.

"Anita mia, never feel so badly about it. We did not plan this, you and I, but it happens—it happens! There is only one straight thing to do: I can ride back to San Juan when you learn the truth. If it is the Americano, the word shall go to his wife quickly. I need not see the man, but I can carry a message, and I will; God helping me to the strength, I will!"

"His wife? Santa Maria! The man has no wife. Half the girls of Los Angeles county try to marry him, but it is never any use."

"Anita!"

"How you stare at me, Raquel! You think I mean some other American, maybe. No? I speak of Don Keith Bryton. You hate them all so; no one ever speaks of them to you; but he is not bad. He saved your Indian woman at the ranch while you slept. You did not know it all."

"Stop, and let me think," said Raquel, imperatively. "Some one has lied. Who is the fair woman with the blue eyes—the Mrs. Bryton—the DoÑa Angela he drove with—the—"

"She is the widow of his half-brother; that is all."

"All? Then how—why should Teresa say this thing? Yesterday I heard her say that DoÑa Angela made a flirtation with Rafael only to make SeÑor Bryton jealous. I heard it, though she did not know. Why should that be, if it is only his brother's wife?"

"Oh, God alone knows the heart of a woman, Raquel! It may be all a lie. Our people do not understand the gringo women. They look love to so many men, and mean it, perhaps, for none. But it was thought, yes, plainly said, when she first came to Los Angeles, that Keith Bryton was the one man she wanted to marry. But that is all over now; no one thinks—"

"Teresa thinks."

"Teresa had better be at her prayers! I could tell you something strange of Keith Bryton,—only you are not interested in gringos,—something of a love of his, and I feel sure it is never the pretty DoÑa Angela."

"Tell me," said Raquel, coldly.

"A man—a priest—learned it from him some way. I thought the Americanos had no saints; but something like a love for a saint keeps Keith Bryton from caring much for any one else. It is as if a woman, instead of a wooden saint, should be in one of the niches of the old altar-place, and he said prayers there. Whoever she is, she seems to be very far above him—like the star he cannot reach."

"The men who cannot reach the stars content themselves with picking flowers, do they not?"

"Oh, God alone knows how they content themselves! I only tell you this thing to show you that SeÑor Bryton has not anywhere in the land a woman to go to him if he were dying alone in the hills; his saint would not step down from the niche of the altar-place."

"Anita mia, you forget," she said, in a strange, mocking tone. "If Keith Bryton is a friend of yours, you should wish him better fortune than to kneel at a place like our old altar. Do you forget that of the eleven niches still left in the old ruin, only one holds a saint,—a saint where no one openly kneels,—that of the Maria Madalena?" "Raquel, what things you do fancy! Now that you know whom you may have to meet, will you ride with me, or back to the road?"

"Back to the plaza?" asked DoÑa Raquel. "Anita mia, all this has come to me in the inner court of the aliso portal: it does not belong to the outer world; neither do we, I think, to-night. Whatever the shadows of the caÑon cover for us, I think, we must ride upward to meet them. Your friend's saint, the Madalena of the niche, will watch over us. When we go back she shall have candles and roses—red ones, Anita!"

Ana was voluble in her delight, and rode up the valley with a great load lifted from her heart.

But the witching spell of the aliso portal had lost its gay charm for Raquel, or else it had sent her another more potent, for she rode in silence under the stars, without gladness, yet so steadily, so recklessly, that Ana more than once had to complain that only a deer or a coyote could keep ahead of her.