"Yet there may be some service I can give, or send south, for you,"

said the priest.

Perez regarded him doubtfully.

"Yes--you might get a message to General Terain that I am a prisoner, on my own estate--if Rotil does not have you killed on the road!"

"I could try," agreed the priest. "I--I might secure permission."

"Permission?"

"It is true, senor. I could not attempt it without the word of General Rotil," announced Padre Andreas. "Of what use to risk the life of a courier for no purpose? But I make a bargain: if you will tell which ranch the Altar Indians were driven to I will undertake to get word for you to a friend. Of course I can get the information from the German if you say no."

"d.a.m.n the German!" swore Perez.

"Good Father," said Marto, "you halt us on the way to join the advance, and we have no mind to take all the dust of the mule train.

Make your talk of fewer words."

"Shall I go to the German?" repeated the priest.

"No,--let him rot alone! The plantation is Linda Vista, and Conrad lied to General Terain to get them housed there. He thought they were rebels who raided ranches in Altar,--political prisoners. Take General Terain word that I am a prisoner of the revolutionists, and----"

"Senor, the sun is too high for idle talk," said Marto briefly, "and your saddle waits."

The priest held the stirrup for Jose Perez, who took the courtesy as a matter of course, turning in the saddle and casting a bitter look at the sun-flooded walls of Soledad.

"To marry a mistress and set her up as the love of another lover--_two_ other lovers!--is not the game of a man," he growled moodily. "If it was to do over, I----"

"Take other thoughts with you," said Padre Andreas sadly, "and my son, go with G.o.d!"

He lifted his hand in blessing, and stood thus after they had turned away. Perez uttered neither thanks nor farewell.

The men, busy with the final packing, stared after him with much curiosity, and accosted the priest as he paced thoughtfully back to the portal.

"Padre, is this ammunition a gift of Don Jose, or is it magic from the old monks who hid the red gold of El Alisal and come back here to guard it and haunt Soledad?" inquired one of the boldest.

"There are no hauntings, and that red gold has led enough men astray in the desert. It is best forgotten."

"But strange things do come about," insisted another man. "Marto Cavayso swore he had witchcraft put on him by the green, jewel eyes of Dona Jocasta, and you see that since she follows our general he has the good luck, and this ammunition comes to him from G.o.d knows where!"

"It may be the Americano knows," hazarded the first speaker. "He took her from Marto, and rides ever beside her. Who proves which is the enchanter?"

"It is ill work to put the name of 'enchantment' against any mortal,"

chided the priest.

"That may be," conceded the soldier, "but we have had speech of this thing, and look you!--Dona Jocasta rode in chains until the Americano crossed her trail, and Don Ramon, and all of us, searched in vain for the American guns, until the Americano rode to Soledad! Enchantment or not, he has luck for his friends!"

"As you please!" conceded the priest with more indifference than he felt. The Americano certainly did not belong to Soledad, and the wonder was that Ramon Rotil gave him charge of so beauteous a lady.

Padre Andreas could easily perceive how the followers of Rotil thought it enchantment, or any other thing of the devil.

Instinctively he disapproved of Rhodes' position in the group; his care-free, happy smile ill fitted the situation at Soledad. Before the stealing away of Dona Jocasta she had been as a dead woman who walked; her sense of overwhelming sin was gratifying in that it gave every hope of leading to repentance, but on her return the manner of her behavior was different. She rode like a queen, and even the marriage was accepted as a justice! Padre Andreas secretly credited the heretic Americano with the change, and Mexican girls put no such dependence on a man outside of her own family,--unless that man was a lover!

He saw his own influence set aside by the stranger and the rebel leader, and with Dona Jocasta as a firebrand he feared dread and awful things now that Rotil had given her power.

He found her with bright eyes and a faint flush in her cheeks over the letter Kit was writing to the south. It was her first act as the wife of Jose Perez, and it was being written to the girl whom Perez had hoped to marry!

Kit got considerable joy in framing her request as follows:

To Senorita Dolores Terain, Linda Vista Rancho, Sonora,

HONORED SEnORITA:

As a woman who desires to secure justice and mercy for some poor peons of our district of Altar, I venture to address you, to whom womanly compa.s.sion must belong as does beauty and graciousness.

This is a work for the charity of women, rather than debates in law courts by men.

I send with this the names of those poor people who were herded south for slavery by Adolf Conrad, a German who calls himself American. To your father, the ill.u.s.trious General Terain, this man Conrad represented these poor people as rebels and raiders of this region. It is not true. They were simple peaceful workers on little ranches.

They were given shelter at your rancho of Linda Vista to work for their food until they could be deported, but I send with this a payment of gold with which to repay any care they have been, or any debts incurred. If it is not enough, I pledge myself to the amount you will regard as justice.

Dear Senorita, my husband, Don Jose, warns me that women cannot manage such affairs, but we can at least try. Parents wait here for sons and daughters, and little children wait for their parents. Will you aid in the Christian task of bringing them together quickly?

At your service with all respect, JOCASTA BENICIA PEREZ, Soledad Rancho, Sonora.

"But you write here of gold sent by messenger, senor!--I have no gold, only words can I send," protested Dona Jocasta helplessly.

"Ah, but the words are more precious than all," Kit a.s.sured her. "It is the right word we have waited for, and you alone could give it, senora. These people have held the gold ransom while waiting that word, and this child can bring it when the time is right."

Dona Jocasta regarded Tula doubtfully; she certainly gave no appearance of holding wealth to redeem a pueblo.

"You,--the little one to whom even the Deliverer listens?" she said kindly. "But the wealth of a little Indian ranch would not seem riches to this ill.u.s.trious lady, the Dona Dolores Terain."

"Yet will I bring riches to her or to you, Excellencia, if only my mother and my sister are coming again to Palomitas," said Tula earnestly.

"But whence comes wealth to you in a land where there is no longer wealth for anyone?"

Kit listened with little liking for the conversation after the padre entered. It was a direct question, and to be answered with directness, and he watched Tula anxiously lest she say the wrong thing. But she told the straight truth in a way to admit of no question.

"Long ago my father got gold for sacred prayer reasons; he hid it until he was old; when he died he made gift of it to me that my mother and sister buy freedom. That is all, Excellencia, but the gold is good gold."

She slipped her hand under her skirt and unfastened the leather strings of the burro-skin belt,--it fell heavily on the tile floor.

She untied the end of it and poured a handful on the table.

"You see, senora, there is riches enough to go with your words, but never enough to pay for them."

"_Santa Maria!_" cried the amazed priest. "That is _red_ gold! In what place was it found?"

Tula laid her hand over the nuggets and faced him.