s they had
called him "El Pajarito" when he first drifted south over Mexican
trails,--but happy erratic tunefulness was smothered for him
temporarily. Over the vast land of riches, smiling in the sun, there
brooded the threats of Indian gods chained, inarticulate, reaching out
in unexpected ways for expression through the dusky devotees at hidden
shrines. The fact that occasionally they found expression through some
perverted fragment from an imported cult was a gruesome joke on the
importers. But under the eagle of Mexico, whose wide wings were used
as shield by the German vultures across seas, jokes were not popular.
German educators and foreign priests with Austrian affiliations, saw
to that. The spiritual harvest in Mexico was not always what the
planters anticipated,--for curious crops sprung up in wild corners of
the land, as Indian grains wrapped in a mummy's robe spring to life
under methods of alien culturists.

Vague drifting thoughts like this followed Kit's shiver of repulsion
at that Indian joy song over the promise of a veritable live Judas. On
him they could wreak a personal vengeance, and go honestly to
confession in some future day, with the conviction that they had, by
the sufferings they could individually and collectively invent for
Judas, in some vague but laudable manner mitigated the sufferings of a
white god far away whose tribulations were dwelt upon much by the
foreign priesthood.

He sensed this without analysis, for his was not the analytical mind.
What brain Kit had was fairly well occupied by the fact that his own
devoted partner was the moving spirit of that damnable pagan _Come,
all ye_--drifting back to him from the glorified mesa, flushed golden
now by the full sun.

Clodomiro came wearily up from the corral. The boy had gone without
sleep or rest until his eyes were heavy and his movements listless.
Like the women of Palomitas he also had worked overtime at the call of
Tula, and Kit wondered at the concerted activity--no one had held back
or blundered.

"Clodomiro," he said passing the lad a cigarette and rolling one for
himself from good new tobacco secured from Fidelio, "how comes it that
even the women of years come in the night for prayers when you ride
for them? Do they give heed to any boy who calls?"

Clodomiro gave thanks for the cigarette, but was too well bred to
light it in the presence of an elder or a superior. He smelled it with
pleasure, thrust it over his ear and