the little blaze and Uncle Joe recognized them
instantly. He drew up quickly.

"Have you seen Patience?" he cried, an agony of fear in his voice. "We
can't find her anywhere!"

The Indians motioned for him to go on and they followed him and his
brother. When a few score paces from the fire they stopped and
consulted, hungrily fingering the locks of their heavy rifles. While
they were sketching a plan a Pueblo Indian, following the trail to the
camp like a speeding shadow, came up to them and blurted out his
fragmentary tale in a mixture of Spanish and Indian.

"Salezar stole white woman on mountain. Put her in _carreta_ and went
back to Santa Fe. Tell these people, that her friends will know.
Salezar, the son of a pig, stole her on the mountain." He burst into a
torrent of words unintelligible and open and shut his hands as he
raved.

Finally in reply to their hot, close questioning he told all he knew,
his answers interspersed with stark curses for Salezar and pity and
anxiety for the angel senorita. His words bore the undeniable stamp of
sincerity, fitted in with what the anxious group feared, and he was
triply bound by the gold pieces crowded into his hands. After another
conference, not pointless now, a plan was hurriedly agreed upon and the
several parts well studied. The Pueblo was given a commission and loaned
a horse, and after repeating what he was to do, shot away into the
darkness. Uncle Joe and his brother grudgingly accepted their parts,
after Tom had shown them they could help in no other way, and turned
back into the encampment, where their hot and eager efforts met with
prompt help from their closest friends. Alonzo Webb and Enoch Birdsall,
mounted, led four horses out of the west side of the camp and melted
into the darkness; several hundred yards from the wagons they turned the
led horses over to four maddened Indians and followed them through the
night, to enter Santa Fe from the south. Not far behind them a cavalcade
rode along the same route, grim and silent. At the little corral where
the _atejo_ had put up the Indians got the horses which Turley had
loaned them, shook hands with the two traders and listened as the
caravan's horses were led off toward the camp.

Armstrong answered the knocks on his door and admitted the Delaware,
listened in amazement to the brief, tense statement of fact, strongly
endorsed Tom's plans, and eagerly accepted his own part. His caller
slipped out, the door clos