temper, but they seemed to prove all that Ellsworth
suspected."

"You must have thought me a very cowardly woman," she told him. "It
wouldn't have made the slightest difference to me, Dave. We would have
met it together when it came, just as we'll meet everything now--you
and I, together."

"My wife!" He laid his lips against her hair.

They were standing beside the window, speechless, oblivious to all
except their great love, when Dolores entered to tell them that supper
was ready and that the horses were saddled.

XXXII

THE DAWN

Juan Garcia proved to be a good guide, and he saved the refugees many
miles on their road to the Rio Grande. But every farm and every village
was a menace, and at first they were forced to make numerous detours.
As the night grew older, however, they rode a straighter course, urging
their horses to the limit, hoping against hope to reach the border
before daylight overtook them. This they might have done had it not
been for Father O'Malley and Dolores, who were unused to the saddle and
unable to maintain the pace Juan set for them.

About midnight the party stopped on the crest of a flinty ridge to give
their horses breath and to estimate their progress. The night was fine
and clear; outlined against the sky were the stalks of countless
sotol-plants standing slim and bare, like the upright lances of an army
at rest; ahead the road meandered across a mesa, covered with grama
grass and black, formless blots of shrubbery.

Father O'Malley groaned and shifted his weight. "Juan tells me we'll
never reach Romero by morning, at this rate," he said; and Dave was
forced to agree. "I think you and he and Alaire had better go on and
leave Dolores and me to follow as best we can."

Dolores plaintively seconded this suggestion. "I would rather be burned
at the stake than suffer these agonies," she confessed. "My bones are
broken. The devil is in this horse." She began to weep softly. "Go,
senora. Save yourself! It is my accursed fat stomach that hinders me.
Tell Benito that I perished breathing his name, and see to it, when he
remarries, that he retains none of my treasures."

Alaire reassured her by saying: "We won't leave you. Be brave and make
the best of it."

"Yes, grit your teeth and hold on," Dave echoed. "We'll manage to make
it somehow."

But progress was far slower than it should have been, and the elder
woman continued to lag behind, voicing her distress in groans and