'll find it
difficult to be conventional."

"My wife!" he cried in sharp agony. Leaning far out, he encircled her
with his arm; then, half lifting her from her saddle, he crushed his
lips to hers. It was his first display of emotion since Father O'Malley
had united them.

There were few villages along the road they followed, and because of
the lateness of the hour all were dark, hence the party passed through
without exciting attention except from an occasional wakeful dog. But
as morning came and the east began to glow Dave told the priest:

"We've got to hide out during the day or we'll get into trouble.
Besides, these women must be getting hungry."

"I fear there is something feminine about me," confessed the little
man. "I'm famished, too."

At the next rancho they came to they applied for shelter, but were
denied; in fact, the owner cursed them so roundly for being Americans
that they were glad to ride onward. A mile or two farther along they
met a cart the driver of which refused to answer their greetings. As
they passed out of his sight they saw that he had halted his lean oxen
and was staring after them curiously. Later, when the sun was well up
and the world had fully awakened, they descried a mounted man,
evidently a cowboy, riding through the chaparral. He saw them, too, and
came toward the road, but after a brief scrutiny he whirled his horse
and galloped off through the cactus, shouting something over his
shoulder.

"This won't do," O'Malley declared, uneasily. "I don't like the actions
of these people. Let me appeal to the next person we meet. I can't
believe they all hate us."

Soon they came to a rise in the road, and from the crest of this
elevation beheld ahead of them a small village of white houses shining
from the shelter of a grove. The rancheria was perhaps two miles away,
and galloping toward it was the vaquero who had challenged them.

"That's the Rio Negro crossing," Dave announced. Then spying a little
house squatting a short distance back from the road, he said: "We'd
better try yonder. If they turn us down we'll have to take to the
brush."

O'Malley agreed. "Yes, and we have no time to lose. That horseman is
going to rouse the town. I'm afraid we're--in for it."

Dave nodded silently.

Leaving the beaten path, the refugees threaded their way through cactus
and sage to a gate, entering which they approached the straw-thatched
jacal they had seen. A naked boy baby watched them d