and he goes on to Soledad where Jose Perez
will have a trembling heart of waiting."

"Will they tell him whose trap he is caught in?"

"Who knows? The Deliverer has plans of his own making. It was not for
idleness he was out of sight when the trap was sprung. He sleeps
little, does Ramon Rotil!"

In a mesquite tree by the cook house chickens began to crow a
desultory warning. And Isidro proceeded to subtract stealthily a skirt
and shawl from wooden pegs set in the adobe wall where Valencia slept.
She startled him by stirring, and making weary inquiry as to whether
it was the time.

"Not yet, my treasure, that fighting cock of Clodomiro crows only
because of a temper, and not for day. It is I will make the fire and
set Maria to the grinding. Go you to your sleep."

Which Valencia was glad to do, while her holiday wardrobe, a purple
skirt bordered with green, and a deeply fringed black shawl, was
confiscated for the stranger within their gates.

Thrusting the bundle back of an olla in the corridor he touched Tula
on the shoulder.

"The senor waits you in the kitchen," he muttered in the Indian
tongue, and she arose without a word, and went silent as a snake along
the shadowy way.

It took courage for Isidro to enter alone the room of Dona Jocasta, as
that was the business of a woman. But Kit had planned that, if
discovered, the girl should apparently have no accomplices. This
would protect Tula and Valencia should Rotil suspect treachery if an
occupant of the house should disappear. It would seem most natural
that a stolen woman would seek to escape homeward when not guarded,
and that was to serve as a reasonable theory.

She slept with occasional shuddering sighs, as a child after sobbing
itself to sleep. That sad little sound gave the old Indian confidence
in his errand. It might mean trouble, but she had dared trouble ere
now. And there could not be continual sorrow for one so beautiful, and
this might be the way out!

She woke with a startled cry as he shook her bed, but it was quickly
smothered as he whispered her name.

"It is best you go to pray in the chapel room, and meet there the
women of Palomitas. Others will go to pray for a Judas; among many you
may be hidden."

She patted his arm, and arose in the dark, slipping on her clothes. He
gave her the skirt and she donned that over her own dress. Her teeth
were chattering with nervous excitement, and when she had covered
herself with the great sh