e gave up hope. For Amada lay in a stupor
from which he thought there was no probability she would ever rouse.
Suddenly she moaned, stretched out her hands and called, "My baby!
Where is my baby?"

Marguerite knelt beside her and tried to tell her that the little one
had never breathed, and Amada flung herself upon the girl's neck and
gave herself up to such transports of grief that the physician sat
down in dumb, amazed helplessness, sure that immediate collapse would
cut short her cries of woe.

"But you can't tell a blessed thing about these Greasers," he said
afterward to Marguerite. "I was sure she was going to die, and I
reckon she would if she had not done the very thing that I thought
would be certain to finish her anyway. Maybe I'll learn sometime that
these Mexican women have got to let out their emotions or they would
die of suppressed volcanoes."

When Marguerite had sympathized with and soothed and comforted her
accidental guest Amada asked if she would send for the _padre_.

"I shall die very soon," she said, "and he must come at once. I
thought I should die long before this, but God has let me live through
all that time that I do not remember, when I was so nearly dead, only
that the _padre_ might come and make me ready for death."

After the priest had gone Marguerite went to the sick girl's room with
a cup of gruel. Amada lay back on the pillow, her face gray with
pallor against the background of her shining black hair. She kissed
and fondled Marguerite's hand.

"You have been very good to me, senorita, but I shall have to trouble
you one little time more, and then I shall be ready to die, and some
one can ride over to the Fernandez mountains, beyond Muletown, and
tell my father, Juan Garcia, that his daughter, Amada, is dead, and
that she was very, very sorry to bring so much grief to him and her
mother. You will tell him that, will you not, senorita? But you must
not tell him about the _nino_, because they do not know--ah, senorita,
you must not think that I am a--a bad woman! See! Here is a letter
that says _mi esposa_! But they might not believe it--and they must
not know--you will not tell them, senorita!"

"But you are not going to die!" said Marguerite encouragingly. "You
will soon be strong again."

Amada shook her head. "No! I shall be dead before another morning
comes. But now the _padre_ says I must see _el Senor Don_ Emerson
Mead."

The girl's eyes caught a sudden, brief flicker