destinies of tribes and shape the trend of national pride and power in a
new continent. And of La Garita, place of execution, facing whose blind
wall the victims of the Spanish rule made their last stand, and,
helpless, fell pierced by the bullets of the Spanish soldiery.

And we children looked into the dying camp-fire and builded there our
own castles in Spain, and hoped that that old flag to which we had
thrown good-by kisses such a little while ago would one day really wave
above old Santa Fe and make it ours to keep. For, young as we were, the
flag already symbolized to us the protecting power of a nation strong
and gentle and generous.

"The first and last law of the trail is to 'hold fast,'" Jondo said, as
we broke up the circle about the camp-fire.

"If you can keep that law we will take you into full partnership
to-night," Esmond Clarenden added, and we knew that he meant what he
said.

IV

THE MAN IN THE DARK

A stone's throw from either hand,
From that well-ordered road we tread,
And all the world is wide and strange.
--KIPLING

"We shall come to the parting of the ways to night if we make good time,
Krane," Esmond Clarenden said to the young Bostonian, as we rested at
noon beside the trait. "To-night we camp at Council Grove and from there
on there is no turning back. I had hoped to find a big crowd waiting to
start off from that place. But everybody we have met coming in says that
there are no freighters going west now. Usually there is no risk in
coming alone from Council Grove to the Missouri River, and there is
always opportunity for company at this end of the trail."

We were sitting in a circle under the thin shade of some
cottonwood-trees beside a little stream; the air of noon, hot above our
heads, was tempered with a light breeze from the southwest. As my uncle
spoke, Rex glanced over at Mat Nivers, sitting beside him, and then
gazed out thoughtfully across the stream. I had never thought her
pretty before. But now her face, tanned by the sun and wind, had a
richer glow on cheek and lip. Her damp hair lay in little wavelets about
her temples, and her big, sunny, gray eyes were always her best feature.

Girls made their own dresses on the frontier, and I suppose that
anywhere else Mat would have appeared old-fashioned in the neat,
comfortable little gowns of durable gingham and soft woolen stuffs that
she made for herself. But somehow in all t