roused.

"Tell me," he broke in. "What is the meaning of this thing? How did it get
started?"

"I don't know exactly," Ramon admitted. "My grandfather told me that they
brought it over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians here had a sort
of whipping fraternity, and the two got mixed up, I guess. The church used
to tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival. But now it's
outlawed. They still have a lot of political power. They all vote the same
way. One man that was elected to Congress--they say that the _penitente_
stripes on his back carried him there. And he was a gringo too. But I
don't know. It may be a lie.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"

"But tell us about that procession you saw when you were a little boy,"
Julia broke in. She was leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and her
big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon his face.

"Well, I was only about ten years old, and I was riding home from one of
our ranches with my father. We were coming through _Tijeras_ canyon. It
was March, and there was snow on the ground in patches, and the mountains
were cold and bare, and I remember I thought I was going to freeze. Every
little while we would get off and set fire to a tumble-weed by the road,
and warm our hands and then go on again.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

"Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing, all together, in deep
voices, and the noise echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
And I could hear, too, the slap of the big wide whips coming down on the
bare backs, wet with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel, only
louder. I didn't know what it was, but my father did, and he called to me
and we spurred our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a clump of
cedar up there. Then they came around a bend in the road, and I began to
cry because they were all covered with blood, and one of them fell down.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
My father slapped me and told me to shut up, or they would come and shoot
us."

"But what did they look like? What were they doing?" Julia demanded
frowning at him, impatient with his rambling narrative.

"Well, in front there was _un carreta del muerto_. That means a wagon of
death. I don't think you would ever see one any more. It was just an
ordinary wagon drawn by six men, naked to the waist and bleeding, with
other men walking beside them and beating them with blacksnake whips, just
like they were mules. In the wagon they had a big bed of stones, cove