e angels for
accident, for something had always ended him, and it was no good
fortune to be a favorite of Don Jose--Dona Jocasta was learning that!

Thus the gossip and surmise went on around Rhodes for his brief hour
of rest and readjustment. He encouraged the expression of opinion from
every source, for he had the job ahead of him to get three hundred
pounds of gold across the border and through a region where every
burro was liable to examination by some of the warring factions. It
behooved him to consider every tendency of the genus homo with which
he came in contact. Also the bonds between them,--especially the
bonds, since the various groups were much of a sameness, and only
"good" or "bad" according to their affiliations. Simple Benito and his
brother, and soft-voiced motherly Valencia who could conceive a worse
death for the German Judas than crucifixion, were typical of the
primitive people of desert and sierra.

"How many head of stock think you still ranges Mesa Blanca?" he asked
Isidro, who confessed that he no longer rode abroad or kept tally,
but Clodomiro would know, and would be in to supper. Benito and
Mariano told of one stallion and a dozen mares beyond the hills, and a
spring near their fields had been muddied the day before by a bunch of
cows and calves, they thought perhaps twenty, and they had seen three
mules with the Mesa Blanca brand when they were getting wood.

"Three mules, eh? Well, I may need those mules and the favor will be
to me if you keep them in sight," he said addressing the boys. "I am
to round up what I can and remove them after Senor Whitely, together
with other belongings."

"Others, senor?" asked Isidro.

Rhodes took the letter from his pocket, and perused it as if to
refresh his memory.

"The old Spanish chest is to go if possible, and other things of Mrs.
Whitely's," he said. "I will speak of these to your wife if the plan
can carry, but there is chance of troops from the south and--who
knows?--we may be caught between the two armies and ground as meal on
a _metate_."

He thus avoided all detail as to the loads the pack animals were to
carry, and the written word was a safe mystery to the Indian. He was
making no definite plans, but was learning all possibilities with a
mind prepared to take advantage of the most promising.

Thus the late afternoon wore on in apparent restful idleness after the
hard trail. The boys secured their little allowance of beans and salt,