wer to some signal,
and then darted away, straight across the mesa instead of toward the
buildings.

"Tula has come!" said Dona Jocasta in a hushed voice of dread. "She
has come, and Senor Rhodes is needed here. That coming of Tula may
bring an end to quiet days,--like this!"

She sighed as she spoke, for the week had been as a space of restful
paradise after the mental and physical horrors she had lived through.

In a half hour Clodomiro came in sight again just as Kit rode in from
the west.

"Get horses out of the corrals," he called, "all of them. That trail
has been long even from the railroad."

It was done quickly, and the vaqueros rode out as Clodomiro reached
the plaza.

"_Tula?_" asked Kit.

"Tula is as the living whose mind is with the dead," said the boy.
"Many are sick, some are dead,--the mother of Tula died on the trail
last night."

"Good God!" whispered Kit. "After all that hell of a trail, to save no
one for herself! Where is Marto?"

"Marto walks, and sick ones are on his horse. I go back now that Tula
has this horse."

"No, I will go. Stay you here to give help to the women. Bring out
beds in every corridor. Bring straw and blankets when the beds are
done."

Dona Jocasta put out her hand as he was about to mount.

"And I? What task is mine to help?" she asked, and Kit looked down at
her gravely.

"Senora, you have only to be yourself, gracious and kind of heart.
Also remember this is the first chance in the lands of Soledad to show
the natives they have not alone a padrona, but a protecting friend. In
days to come it may be a memory of comfort to you."

Then he mounted, and led the string of horses out to meet the exiles.
While she looked after him murmuring, "In days to come?"

And to the padre she said, "I had ceased to think of days to come, for
the days of my life had reached the end of all I could see or think.
He gives hope even in the midst of sadness,--does the Americano."

Kit met the band where the trail forked to Palomitas and Mesa Blanca.
Some wanted to go direct to their own homes and people, while Marto
argued that food and rest and a priest awaited them at Soledad, and
because of their dead, they should have prayers.

Tula said nothing. She sat on the sand, and caressed a knife with a
slightly curved blade,--a knife not Mexican, yet familiar to Kit, and
like a flash he recalled seeing one like it in the hand of Conrad at
Granados.

She did not even look up when