her little Vigils were to be seen, and
Jane, as she looked, began to see that some sort of excitement was
stirring them. The senora herself stood staring, wide-eyed and curious.
Ana Vigil, her eldest girl, was pointing. Attention seemed to be
directed toward something at the foot of the hill behind Jane's house,
and she turned to see what was going on there.

A covered wagon, of the prairie-schooner type, was drawn up at the
foot of the rise. Three horses were hobbled near by, and a little fire
smoked itself out, untended. The whole thing meant merely the night
halt of some farer to the mountains. Jane, about to turn away, saw
something, however, which held her. In the shadow of the wagon the
doctor's buggy disclosed itself. Some one lay ill under the tunnel of
canvas.

She had just said this to herself when out upon the sunny stillness
rang a sharp, lamentable cry, such as a child might utter in an
extremity of fear or pain. The sound seemed to strike a sudden horror
upon the day's bright face, and Jane shivered. She made an impulsive
step out into her corn-field, hardly knowing what she meant to do. And
then she saw the doctor alighting from the wagon, and pausing to speak
to a man who followed him.

This man wore a broad felt hat, whose peaked crown was bound in a
silver cord which glittered gaily above the startled whiteness of his
face. He had on buckskin trousers, and there was a dash of color at his
waist, like a girdle, which gave a sort of theatric air to his gesture
as he threw up his arms wildly and turned away.

The doctor seemed perplexed. He looked distractedly about, and seeing
Jane Combs in her field, called to her and came running. He reached the
fence breathless, for he was neither so young nor so slim as the man
leaning weeping against the wagon-step.

"Will you go over there, Miss Combs?" he panted. "There's a poor woman
in that wagon breathing her last. They were on their way from Taos to
Cripple Creek--been camping along the way for some time. Probably they
struck bad water somewhere. She's had a low fever. The husband--Keene,
his name is--came for me at daybreak, but it was too late. She seems to
be a Mexican, though the man isn't. What I want you to do is to look
after a child--a little girl of ten or twelve--who is there with her
mother. She must be brought away. Did you hear her cry out just
now?--that desperate wail? We'd just told her!"

"I guess everybody heard it," said Jane. Mechani