ed slightly, and
on its rim jagged rock cliffs rose through three hundred feet of
earthquake-burst, volcanic-tossed confusion to the high tableland
beyond.

As we strained forward, half a dozen Mexican horsemen suddenly appeared
on the trail before us to cut off our advance. Down between us and the
new enemy stood the old stone chapel, like the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land, where for two hundred long years it had set up an altar to
the Most High on this lonely savage plain.

"The chapel! The chapel! We must run to that now," cried Sister Anita.

Her long veil was streaming back in the wind, and her rosary and
crucifix beating about her shoulders with the hard riding, but her white
face was brave with a divine trust. Yet even as she urged us I saw how
imposible was her plea, for the men in front were already nearer
to the place than we were. At the same time a pony dashed up beside me,
and Little Blue Flower's voice rang in my ears.

"The rocks! Climb up and hide in the rocks!" She dropped back on one
side of Beverly, with Sister Anita on the other, guarding our rear. As
I turned our flight toward the cliff, I caught sight of an Indian in a
wedge of rock just across the river, and I heard the singing flight of
an arrow behind me, followed almost instantly by another arrow. I looked
back to see Sister Anita's pony staggering and rearing in agony, with
Little Blue Flower trying vainly to catch its bridle-rein, and Sister
Anita, clutching wildly at her rosary, a great stream of blood flowing
from an arrow wound in her neck.

Men think swiftly in moments like these. The impulse to halt, and the
duty to press on for the protection of the girl beside me, holding me in
doubt. Instantly I saw the dark crew, with Ferdinand Ramero leading
fiercely forward, almost upon us, and I heard Beverly Clarenden's voice
filling the valley--"Run, Gail, run! You can beat 'em up there."

It was a cry of insistences and assurances and power, and withal there
was that minor tone of sympathy which had sounded in the boy's defiant
voice long ago in the gray-black shadows below Pawnee Rock, when his
chivalric soul had been stirred by the cruel wrongs of Little Blue
Flower and he had cried:

"Uncle Esmond, let's take her, and take our chances."

I knew in a flash that the three behind us were cut off, and Eloise St.
Vrain and I pressed on alone. We crossed the narrow strip of rising
ground to where the first rocks lay as they had f