, together with the few burros of the older women, she might
follow after unnoticed. The adobe wall at the back was over ten feet
high and would serve as a shield, and the entire cavalcade would be a
half mile away ere they came in range from the plaza.

He planned to manage that the mare be there without asking help of any
Indian, and he thought he could do it while the guard was having
breakfast. It would be easy for them to suppose that the black was his
own. Thus scheming for beauty astray in the desert, he chatted with
Fidelio concerning the pilgrimage of the Palomitas women, and the
possibility of Rotil's patience with them, when Tula crossed the patio
hurriedly and entered the door of the _sala_.

The general was finishing his breakfast, while Isidro was crouched
beside him rewinding the bandage after a satisfactory inspection of
the wound. The swelling was not great, and Rotil, eating cheerfully,
was congratulating himself on having made a straight trail to the
physician of Mesa Blanca; it was worth a lost day to have the healing
started right.

He was in that complacent mood when Tula sped on silent bare feet
through the _sala_ portal, and halted just inside, erect against the
wall, gazing at him.

"Hola! _Nina_ who has the measure of a man! The coffee was of the
best. What errand is now yours?"

"Excellency, it is the errand too big for me, yet I am the one sent
with it. They send me because the mother of me, and Anita, my sister,
were in the slave drive south, and the German and the Perez men
carried whips and beat the women on that trail."

Her brave young heart seemed to creep up in her throat and choke her
at thought of those whips and the women who were driven, for her voice
trembled into silence, and she stood there swallowing, her head bent,
and her hands crossed over her breast, and clasped firmly there was
the crucifix she had found in the guest room. Little pagan that she
was, she regarded it entirely as a fetish of much potency with white
people, and surely she needed help of all gods when she spoke for the
whole pueblo to this man who had power over many lives.

Rotil stared at her, frowning and bewildered.

"What the devil,--" he began, but Isidro looked up at him and nodded
assent.

"It is a truth she is telling, Excellency. Her father was Miguel,
once major-domo of this rancho. He died from their fight, and his
women were taken."

"Oh, yes, that!--it happens in many states. But this