open the door and looked within, a still figure with the
face hidden, crouched by a bench against the wall. In two strides Kit
crossed from the door and grasped the shoulder, and the figure propped
there fell back on the tiles. It was the dead priest dressed in the
clothes of Conrad, and the horror of that which had been a face showed
he had died by strangulation under the hands of the man for whom he
had gone to pray.

Dona Jocasta ran wildly screaming through the patio, but the Indian
voices and the drum prevented her from being heard until she burst
among them just as Conrad leaped to the back of the nearest horse.

"El Aleman! El Aleman!" she screamed pointing to him in horror. "He
has murdered the padre and taken his robe. It is El Aleman! Your Judas
has killed your priest!"

Kit ran for his own horse, but with the quickness of a cat Tula was
before him in the saddle, and whirling the animal, leaning low, and
her gorgeous _manta_ streaming behind like a banner she sped after the
German screaming, "Judas! Judas! Judas of Palomitas!"

And, as in the other chants led by her, the Indian women took up this
one in frenzied yells of rage.

The men of the corral heard and leaped to saddles to follow the flying
figures, but Kit was ahead,--not much, but enough to be nearest the
girl.

Straight as an arrow the fugitive headed for Mesa Blanca, the nearest
ranch where a fresh horse could be found, and Dona Jocasta and some of
the women without horses stood in the plaza peering after that wild
race in the gray of the coming night.

[Illustration: The Indian girl was steadily gaining on the German.]

A flash of lightning outlined the three ahead, and a wail of utter
terror went up from them all.

"Mother of God, the canon of the quicksand!" cried Dona Jocasta.

"Tula! Tula! Tula!" shrilled the Indian women.

Tula was steadily gaining on the German, and Kit was only a few rods
behind as they dashed down the slight incline to that too green belt
in the floor of the brown desert.

He heard someone, Marto he thought, shouting his name and calling
"_Sumidero! Sumidero!_" He did not understand, and kept right on.
Others were shouting at Tula with as little result, the clatter of the
horses and the rumble of the breaking storm made all a formless chaos
of sound.

The frenzied scream of a horse came to him, and another lightning
flash showed Conrad, ghastly and staring, leap from the saddle--in the
middle of the little