the guns and soldiers of Ramon Rotil,--how
wonderful!" she breathed. "And if the newspapers tell the truth I
reckon he needs the guns all right! Cap dear, where is that one Jose
Ortego rode in with from the railroad as we were leaving La Partida?"

"In my coat, Honey. You go get it--you are younger than this
old-timer."

Jocasta followed Billie with her eyes, though she had not understood
the English words between them. It was not until the paper was
unfolded with an old and very bad photograph of Ramon Rotil staring
from the front page that she whispered a prayer and reached out her
hand. The headline to the article was only three words in heavy type
across the page: "Trapped at last!"

But the words escaped her, and that picture of him in the old days
with the sombrero of a peon on his head and his audacious eyes smiling
at the world held her. No picture of him had ever before come her way;
strange that it should be waiting for her there at the border!

The Indian boy at sight of it, stepped nearer, and stood a few paces
from her, looking down.

"It calls," he said.

It was the first time he had spoken except to make reply since
entering the American camp. Dona Jocasta frowned at him and he moved a
little apart, leaning,--a slender dark, semi-nude figure, against the
green and yellow mist of a palo verde tree,--listening with downcast
eyes.

Dona Jocasta looked from the pictured face to the big black letters
above.

"Is it a victorious battle, for him?" she asked and Kit hesitated to
make reply, but Billie, not knowing reason for silence, blurted out
the truth even while her eyes were occupied by another column.

"Not exactly, senora. But here is something of real interest to you,
something of Soledad--oh, I _am_ sorry!"

"What does it say,--Soledad?"

"See!--I forgot you don't know the English!"

* * * * *

Troops from the south to rescue Don Jose Perez from El Gavilan at
Soledad turn guns on that survival of old mission days, and level it
to the ground. Soledad was suspected as an ammunition magazine for the
bandit chief, and it is feared Senor Perez is held in the mountains
for ransom, as no trace of him has been found.

* * * * *

"Now you've done it," remarked Kit, and Billie turned beseeching eyes
on the owner of Soledad, and repeated miserably--"I _am_ so sorry!"

But Dona Jocasta only lifted her head with