said with a glance of sorrow
towards a girl who was youngest of the slaves brought back. "You,
amigo, keep all but the key."

"As you say," he agreed. "Come along, padre, you are to get the
privilege you've been begging for, and I don't envy you the task."

Padre Andreas made no reply. In his heart he blamed Rhodes that the
prisoner had not been let escape during the absence of the girl, and
also resented the offhand manner of the young American concerning the
duty of a priest.

The sun was at the very edge of the world, and all shadows spreading
for the night when they went to the door of Conrad's quarters. Kit
unlocked the door and looked in before opening wide. The one window
faced the corral, and Conrad turned from it in shaking horror.

"What is it they say out there?" he shouted in fury. "They call words
of blasphemy, that the bull is Germany, and 'Judas' will ride it to
the death! They are wild barbarians, they are----"

"Never mind what they are," suggested Kit, "here is a priest who
thinks you may have a soul worth praying for, and the Indians have let
him come--once!"

Then he let the priest in and locked the door, going back to Tula with
the key. She sat where he had left her, and was crooning again the
weird tuneless dirge at which Marto had been appalled.

But she handed him a letter.

"Marto forgot. It was with the Chinaman trader at the railroad," she
said and went placidly on fondling the key as she had fondled the
knife, and pitching her voice in that curious falsetto dear to Indian
ceremonial.

He could scarce credit the letter as intended for himself, as it was
addressed in a straggling hand filling all the envelope, to Capitan
Christofero Rhodes, Manager of Rancho Soledad, District of Altar,
Sonora, Mexico, and in one corner was written, "By courtesy of Senor
Fidelio Lopez," and the date within a week. He opened it, and walked
out to the western end of the corridor where the light was yet good,
though through the barred windows he could see candles already lit in
the shadowy _sala_.

The letter was from Cap Pike, and in the midst of all the accumulated
horror about him, Kit was conscious of a great homesick leap of the
heart as he skimmed the page and found her name--"Billie is all
right!"

How are you, Capitan? (began the letter). That fellow Fidelio rode
into the _cantina_ here at La Partida today. He asked a hell's
slew of questions about you, and Billie and me nearly had fit