eady at his call to do any crime for his sake. That's how far
money and an ungovernable passion can lead a man. If I had known this
sooner, we would have acted to-night."

Beverly groaned.

"Let me go and kill that man. There ought to be a bounty on such wild
beasts," he declared.

"He'd do that for you through a Mexican dagger, or an Apache arrow, if
you got in his way," Jondo replied. "But what we must do is this: Twenty
miles south on the San Christobal Arroyo there is a lonely ranch-house
on the old Narveo estate, a forgotten place, but it is a veritable fort,
built a hundred years ago, when every house here was a fort. To-morrow
at daybreak you must start with Eloise and Sister Anita down there. I
will see Father Josef later and tell him where I have sent you. Little
Blue Flower will show you the way. It is a dangerous ride, and you must
make it as quickly and as silently as possible. A bullet from some
little canon could find you easily if Ramero should know your trail.
Will you go?"

There was no need for the question as Jondo well knew, but his face was
bright with courage and hope, and a thankfulness he could not express
shone in his eyes as he looked at us, big, stalwart, eager and unafraid.

XV

THE SANCTUARY ROCKS OF SAN CHRISTOBAL

Mark where she stands! Around her form I draw
The awful circle of our solemn church!
Set but a foot within that holy ground,
And on thy head--yea, though it wore a crown--
launch the curse of Rome.
--"RICHELIEU."

The faint rose hue of early dawn was touching the highest peaks of the
Sandia and Jemez mountain ranges, while the valley of the Rio Grande
still lay asleep under dull night shadows, when five ponies and their
riders left the door of San Miguel church and rode southward in the
slowly paling gloom. In the stillness of the hour the ponies' feet,
muffled in the sand of the way, seemed to clatter noisily, and their
trappings creaked loudly in the dead silence of the place. Little Blue
Flower, no longer in her Mexican dress, led the line. Behind her Beverly
and the white-faced nun of St. Ann's rode side by side; and behind these
came Eloise St. Vrain and myself. From the church door Jondo had watched
us until we melted into the misty shadows of the trail.

"Go carefully and fearlessly and ride hard if you must. But the
struggle will be here with me to-day, not where you are," he assured us,
when we started awa