."

Eloise smiled.

"You musn't envy me my good fortune, Rex," she declared. "Aunty Boone
says she is going back to Africa, too. You'll need a new cook, Uncle
Esmond. Let me apply for the place right now."

My uncle smiled affectionately on her.

"I could give you a trial, as I gave her. I remember I told her if she
could cook good meals I'd keep her; if not, she'd leave. Do you want to
take the risk?"

"That's where you'll get your journey of the prophecy, Eloise," Jondo
suggested.

"Well, you leave out the best part of it all," Mat broke in. "She added
that Beverly isn't a deserter, he's just 'gone out.' Why don't you
believe it all, serious or frivolous?"

A shadow lifted from the faces there as a glimpse of hope came slowly
in.

"And as to letters, Eloise," Uncle Esmond said, "I must beg your pardon.
I have one here for you that I had forgotten. It came this morning."

"See if it isn't from a dark man, inviting you to take a journey," Rex
suggested.

"It must be, it's from Santa Fe," Eloise said, opening the letter
eagerly.

Aunty Boone had come back again and was standing by the corner of the
veranda, half hidden by vines, watching Eloise with steady eyes. The
girl's face grew pale, then deadly white, and her big, dark eyes were
opened wide as she dropped the letter and looked at the faces about her.

"It is from Father Josef," she gasped. "He writes of Little Blue Flower
somewhere in Hopi-land. He asks me to go to Santa Fe at once for her
sake. And it says, too--" The voice faltered and Eloise turned to Esmond
Clarenden. "It says that Beverly is there somewhere and he wants you.
Read it, Uncle Esmond."

As Eloise rose and laid the letter in my uncle's hand, Aunty Boone,
hidden by the vines, muttered in her soft, strange tone:

"He's jus' gone out. Thank Jupiter! He's jus' gone out. I'm goin', hot
streaks, to help him, too. Then I go to my own desset where I'm honin' o
to be, an' stay there till the judgment Day. Whoo-ee!"

In the early morning of a rare October day upon the plains I sat on my
cavalry horse beside Fort Hays, waiting for one last word from my
superior officer, Colonel Moore. He was my uncle's friend, and he had
been kind to the Clarenden boys, as military kindness runs.

"You are honorably discharged," he said. "Take these letters to Fort
Dodge. You will meet your friends there, and have some safeguard from
there on, by order of General Sheridan. God bless you, Gail. You have
r