strained for an expected sound. After each such halt
Pedro would resume his path, climbing over rocks which looked
insurmountable and skirting others by ledges less than a span's width.
Over this part of the canyon wall none of the Sobrante ranchmen had
ever come; though below it, along a smoother portion, ran the flume
that watered the ranch in the valley.

Darkness found the shepherd still among the overhanging crags, and
with true Indian stolidity he rested for the night. His blanket
wrapped around him, his staff on the safe inner side, he lay down upon
a shelf of stone and slept as peacefully as in his cabin on the level
mesa, from which two motives had driven him abroad.

Something had warned him that this approaching Christmastide might be
his last, and that the time of which he had often dreamed was to come.
He would now test the truth of the secret he had received, and, if it
proved what had been promised, would share it with his beloved
mistress, his priceless Navidad gift to her and hers.

Also sitting solitary at his basket, weaving on the isolated island,
Pedro had still observed much. Each trifle was an event to him, and of
late these trifles had gathered thick about him. With annoying
frequency Ferd, the dwarf, had invaded and contaminated his solitude.
The hints which the misshapen creature had dropped, though receiving
no outward attention, had, nevertheless, remained in the Indian's mind
to disturb it. It was to hunt for this wretched fellow, as well as to
prove his "secret," that he was now in the canyon, believing that when
he was found, there would be Jessica also.

When morning came he rose and tightened his belt about him and set out
afresh. The long sleep had restored his vigor and his eye gleamed with
satisfaction. The muscles that had stiffened from long disuse--he
would not have admitted that the stiffness came from age--were limber
as of old, and he felt that, after all, it was good to be once more
upon the trail. But even his confidence would have been rudely shaken
could he have foreseen the peril wherein that trail would end.

[A] Little one.

CHAPTER IV.

DELIVERANCE

A second night of fruitless search upon the rocky wall passed before
the old Indian came to the spot which he had thought so near, full
twenty-four hours before. He had fed his hunger upon the few wild
plums he had found, and more than once he had descended to the flume
to slake his thirst; then reclimbed