wants this house and will pay us well to open the door. It is for the
woman. They have played a game for her, and he has won, but she is a
wild woman when he goes near her, and his plan is to steal her out at
night and hide her from the others. So he wants this house. He offered
me a good gun. He offers us the protection of Don Jose Perez."

"But--why--that is not credible," protested Kit. "He could not count
on protection from Perez if he stole the woman whom many call Senora
Perez, for that is what they did call Dona Jocasta in Hermosillo."

"Maybe so," assented Clodomiro stolidly, "but now he is to be the
_esposo_ of a Dona Dolores who is the child of General Terain, so
Marto says. Well, this Dona Jocasta has done some killing, and Don
Jose does not give her to prison. He sends her to the desert that she
brings him no disgrace; and if another man takes her or sinks her in
the quicksands then that man will be helping Don Jose. That is how it
is. Marto says the woman has bewitched him, and he is crazy about her.
Some of the other men, will take her, if not him."

Kit exchanged a long look with the old Indian.

"The house is yours, senor," said Isidro. "By the word of Senor
Whitely, you are manager of Mesa Blanca."

"Many thanks," replied Kit, and sat with his elbows on the table and
his hands over his eyes, thinking--thinking of the task he had set
himself in Sonora, and the new turn of the wheel of fortune.

"You say the lady is a prisoner?" he asked.

"Sure," returned Clodomiro promptly. "She broke loose coming through a
little pueblo and ran to the church. She found the priest and told him
things, so they also take that priest! If they let him go he will
talk, and Don Jose wanting no talk now of this woman. That priest is
well cared for, but not let go away. After awhile, maybe so."

"She is bright, and her father was a priest," mused Kit. "So there is
three chances out of four that she can read and write,--a little
anyway. Could you get a letter to her?"

"Elena could."

Kit got up, took one of the candles from the table and walked through
the rooms surrounding the patio. Some of them had wooden bars in the
windows, but others had iron grating, and he examined these
carefully.

"There are two rooms fit for perfectly good jails," he decided, "so I
vote we give this bewitched Don Marto the open door. How many guns can
we muster?"

"He promised to give me one, and ammunition."

"Well, you get it! Get