ng and
surcharged with the lust of combat, felt all the instinct of murder
urging him on to utterly destroy a poison-fanged foe to humanity. At
Santan's words he paused and, flinging back the hair from his forehead,
he caught his breath and his better self in the same heart-beat. And the
instinct of the gentleman--he was Esmond Clarenden's brother's son--held
the destroying hand.

"You aimed at me! Well, learn your lesson on that right now. Promise
never to play the fool that way again. Promise the everlasting God's
truth, or here you go."

The boy's clutch tightened on Santan's throat. "By all that's holy,
you'll go to your happy hunting-ground _right now, unless you do_!" He
growled out the words, and his blazing eyes glared threateningly at his
fallen enemy.

"I promise!" Santan muttered, gasping for breath.

"You didn't mean to kill the nun? Then you'll go with me and ask her to
forgive you before she dies. You will. You needn't try to get away from
me. I let you thrash your strength out before we came to this
settlement. Be still!" Beverly commanded, as Santan made a mad effort to
release himself.

"Hurry up, and remember she is dying. Go softly and speak gently, or by
the God of heaven, you'll go with her to the Judgment Seat to answer for
that deed right now!"

Slowly the two rose. Their clothes were torn, their hair disheveled, the
ground at their feet was red with their blood. They were as bitter, as
distrustful now as when their struggle began. For brute force never
conquers anything. It can only hold in check by fear of its power to
destroy the body. Above the iron fist of the fighter, and the sword and
cannon of the soldier, stands the risen Christ who carried his own cross
up Mount Calvary--and "there they crucified him."

The two young men, spent with their struggle, their faces stained with
dirt and bloody sweat, crossed the river and sought the shadowy place
where Little Blue Flower sat beside Sister Anita. Twice Santan tried to
escape, and twice Beverly brought him quickly to his place. It must
have been here that I caught sight of them from the rock above.

"One more move like that and the ghost of Sister Anita will walk behind
you on every trail you follow as long as your flat feet hit the earth,"
Beverly declared.

"All Indians are afraid of ghosts and I was just too tired to fight any
more," he said to me afterward when he told me the story of that hour by
the San Christobal River.

Si