y and clean among the rough and vulgar things of the Missouri
frontier. Jondo, whose big, cool hand had touched my feverish face,
whose deep blue eyes had looked love into my eyes when I lay dying on
Pawnee Rock! A man without a name! A murderer who had by a trick escaped
the law, and must walk evermore unknown among his fellow-men! Something
went out of my life as I looked at him. The boy in me was burned and
seared away, and only the man-to-be, was left.

He offered no word of defense from the accusation against him, nor made
a plea of innocence, but sat looking straight at Father Josef, who
looked at him as if expecting nothing. And as they gazed into each
other's eyes, a something strong and beautiful swept the face of each. I
could not understand it, and I was young. My lifetime hero had turned to
nothingness before my eyes. The world was full of evil. I hated it and
all that in it was, my trusting, foolish, short-sighted self most of
all.

But Eloise--the heart of woman is past understanding--Eloise turned to
the man beside her and, putting both arms around his neck, she pressed
one fair cheek against his brown bearded one, and kissed him gently on
the forehead. Then turning to Father Josef, no longer the dependent,
clinging maiden, but the loving woman, strong and sure of will, she
said:

"I must go to my mother. So long as she lives I will never leave her
again."

She did not even look at me, nor speak a word of farewell, as if I were
the murderer instead of that man, Jondo, whom she had kissed.

I saw her ride away, with Little Blue Flower beside her. I saw the green
mesa, the red cliffs above the growing things, the glitter of the San
Christobal water on yellow sands, the level plain where the narrow white
trail crept far away toward Gloria Narveo's lonely ranch-house, strong
as a fort built a hundred years ago, in a little canon of the valley. I
saw a young, graceful figure on horseback, and the glint of sunlight on
golden hair. But the rider did not turn her head and I could not get one
glance of those beautiful dark eyes. A great mass of rock hid the line
of the trail, and the two, Eloise and Little Blue Flower, rounded the
angle and rode on out of my sight.

I helped to dig open the curly mesquite and to shovel out the sand. I
heard the burial service, and saw a rudely coffined form lowered into an
open grave. I saw Rex Krane at the head, and Jondo at the foot, and
Beverly's bleeding hands as he scr