chum. The
same gang of Mexicans had kidnapped Little Blue Flower and given her to
the Kiowas."

"You told me that Uncle Esmond forced Ferdinand Ramero out of the
country on account of a wrong done to you, Jondo," I reminded the big
plainsman.

"He did," Jondo replied. "I told you that we all loved Mary Marchland.
Fred Ramer broke under his loss of her, and became the devil's own tool
of hate and revenge, and what generally gets tied up with these sooner
or later, a passion for money and irregular means of getting it. Money
is as great an asset for hate as for love, and Fred sold his soul for it
long ago. Clarenden came to the frontier and lost himself in the
building of the plains commerce, and his heart he gave to the three
orphan children to whom he gave a home. When New Mexico came under our
flag Narveo came with it, a good citizen and a loyal patriot. He married
a Mexican woman of culture and lives a contented life. Dick Verra went
into the Church. I came to the plains, and the stimulus of danger, and
the benediction of the open sky, and the healing touch of the prairie
winds, and the solemn stillness of the great distances have made me
something more of a man than I should have been. Maybe I was hurt the
worst. Clarenden thought I was. Sometimes I think Dick Verra got the
best of all of us."

Jondo's voice trailed off into silence and I knew what his hurt
was--that he was the man whom Mary Marchland had loved, from whom Fred
Ramer, by his cruel machinations, had separated her--"_and although they
loved each other always, they never saw each other again_." Poor Jondo!
What a man among men this unknown freighter of the plains might have
been--and what a loss to the plains in the best of the trail years if
Jondo had never dared its dangers for the safety of the generations to
come.

But the thought of Eloise, driven out momentarily by Jondo's story, came
rushing in again.

"You said you put a ring around Ramero to keep him in Santa Fe. Can't we
get Eloise outside of it?" I urged, anxiously.

"Maybe I should have said that Father Josef put it around him for me,"
Jondo replied. "He confessed his crimes fully to the Church. He couldn't
get by Father Josef. Here he is much honored and secure and we let him
alone. The disgrace he holds the secret of--he alone--is that the father
of Eloise killed his father, the crime for which the foster-brother
fell. Ramero as guardian of Eloise and her property legally could have