sion at the childishness of
Indian astrology.

"Myself, I think the Indian sky knowers had the prophet sight," went
on Dona Jocasta. "They make their eagle on the standard and they put
the serpent there of the reason that some day a thing of poison would
crawl to the nest of the eagle of Mexico to comrade there. It has
crawled over the seas for that, Padre, and the beak and claws and wing
of the eagle must all do battle to kill the head and the heart of
it;--for the heart of a serpent dies hard, and they breed and hatch
their eggs everywhere in the soil of Mexico. Senor Padre, the Indian
women of Palomitas are right!--the girl Tula is a child of the eagle,
and her stroke at the heart of the German snake will be a true stroke.
I will not be one to give the weak word for mercy."

Her gaze, through half-closed lids, was directed towards the far trail
of the canon where moving dots of dark marked the coming of the
Palomitas women. A ray of reflected light touched the jewel green of
her eyes like shadowed emeralds in their dusky casket, and the priest,
constantly proclaiming the probable loss of her soul, could not but
bring his glance again and again to the wondrous beauty of her. She
had bloomed like a royal rose in the days of serene rest at Soledad.

"If the heretic Americano gives you these thoughts which are not
Christian, it will be a day of good luck when you see the last of
him," was his cold statement as he watched her. "My mind is not well
satisfied as to his knowledge of secret things here in Sonora. The
Indians say he is an enchanter or Ramon Rotil would never have left
him here as capitan with you,--and that belt of gold----"

"But it was not the belt of the Americano!"

"No, but he _knows_! I tell you that gold is of the gold lost before
we were born,--the red gold of the padres' mine!"

"But the old women are telling me that the gold was Indian gold long
before Spanish priests saw the land! Does the Indian girl then not
have first right?"

"None has right ahead of the church, since all those pagans are under
the rule of church! They are benighted heathen who must come under
instruction and authority, else are they as beasts of the field."

"Still,--if the girl makes use of her little heritage for a pious
purpose----"

"Her intent has nothing to do with that secret knowledge of the
Americano!" he insisted. "Has he bewitched you also that you have so
little interest in a mine of gold in anyone of the