t into the big, dark
eyes lifted pleadingly a moment to mine. I wanted to take her in my arms
right then and look about for something to kill for her sake. Yet I
would not, for the gold of all the Mexicos, have touched the hem of her
Grecian robe.

"Yes, I have seen Marcos many times. His father went to old Mexico after
the war, but the Rameros do not stay long anywhere. Marcos made life
miserable for me sometimes." She paused suddenly.

"The Rameros. Then he was the son of the man who was my uncle's enemy.
Maybe you did as much for him, too, sometimes. You had the spirit to do
it, anyhow," I said, lightly, to hide my real feeling.

"I was a little cat. I'm a lot better now. Let's not go too much into
that time. Tell me where you have been and where you are going." Eloise
changed the subject easily.

"I've been in Cincinnati, attending a boys' school for three years. I
start for Santa Fe in two weeks. My uncle's store is doing a big over
land business, and he keeps the ox-teams just fanning one another,
coming and going across the prairies. I'm crazy to go and see the open
plains again. Cincinnati is a city on stilts, and our little
Independence-Westport Landing-Kansas City place, as the Cincinnati of
the great American desert, is also pretty bumpy, the last place on earth
to put a town--only we can see almost to Santa Fe, New Mexico, from the
hilltops. Won't it be great to view that mud-walled town again? Bev is
going, too--to kill a few Indians for our winter's meat, he says, in his
wicked, blood-thirsty way." So I ran on, glad to be alive in the
delicious beauty of that spring evening as we together went back over
the days of our young years.

"Gail, may we take another passenger to-morrow?" Eloise asked, suddenly.

"Why, as many as the stage will hold! There's to be a nun and a priest
and yourself. I'm chaperon. I could take the priest on my lap if he
isn't too bulky," I answered.

"I want to take Po-a-be. I can't tell you why now."

The lashes dropped over the brown eyes, and I wondered how she could
think that I could refuse her anything.

"Oh, we'll take her on faith and the stage-coach. She can come right to
Castle Clarenden and stay till she gets ready to hurdle off to her own
'wickie up'. She has grown into a beautiful Indian woman, though I
couldn't call her a squaw."

"She isn't a squaw. I'm glad to hear you say that. I think it will make
her very happy to stay at your home for a while. She will