ho had
walked into my life to stay? As he passed out of my sight Eloise St.
Vrain came swiftly around the corner of the street to the church door,
and stopped before me in wide-eyed amazement. Eloise, with her clinging
creamy draperies, and the vivid red of her silken scarf, and her
glorious hair.

"Oh, Gail Clarenden, is it really you?" she cried, stretching out both
hands toward me with a glad light in her eyes.

"Yes, Little Lees, it is I."

I took both of her hands in mine. They were soft and white, and mine
were brown and horny, but their touch sent a thrill of joy through me.
She clung tightly to my hands for an instant. Then a deeper pink swept
her cheeks, and she dropped her eyes and stepped back.

"They told me you were--lost--on the way; that some Kiowas had killed
you."

She lifted her face again, and heaven had not anything better for me
than the depths of those big dark eyes looking into mine.

"Who told you, Eloise?"

The girl looked over her shoulder apprehensively, and lowered her voice
as she replied:

"Marcos Ramero."

"He's a liar. I am awfully alive, and Marcos Ramero knows I am, for he
saw me and recognized me down in the Plaza this afternoon," I declared.

Just then the church door opened and a girl in Mexican dress came out. I
did not see her face, nor notice which way she took, for a priest
following her stepped between us. It was Father Josef.

"My children, come inside. The holy sanctuary offers you a better
shelter than the open street."

I shall never forget that voice, nor hear another like it. Inside, the
candles were burning dimly at the altar. The last rays of daylight came
through the high south windows, touching the carved old rafters and gray
adobe with a red glow. Long ago human hands, for lack of trowels, had
laid that adobe surface on the rough stone--hands whose imprint is
graven still on those crudely dented walls.

We sat down on a low seat inside of the doorway, and Father Josef passed
up the aisle to the altar, leaving us there alone.

"Eloise, Marcos Ramero is your friend, and I beg your pardon for
speaking of him as I did."

I resented with all my soul the thought of this girl caring for the son
of the man who in some infamous way had wronged Jondo, but I had no
right to be rude about him.

"Gail, may I say something to you?" The voice was as a pleading call and
the girl's farce was full of pathos.

"Say on, Little Lees," was all that I could venture to