governed that. And Eloise had
entered there to stay. This much was clear enough. But that which
followed seemed to twist and writhe about in my mind with only one thing
sure--Eloise loved Beverly, would always love him. And he could not love
any one else. He could be kind to any girl, but he would not be happy.
Some day when he was older--a real man--then he would long for the girl
of his heart and his own choice, and he would find her and love her,
too, and she would love him and those who stood between them they both
would hate. And Eloise loved Beverly. She could not send Gail any words
herself, but he would understand."

So came the Indian girl's interpretation of the case, but the conclusion
was the message meant for me. I wondered vaguely, as I sat there, if the
vision had come to Beverly years ago as it had come to me: three
men--the soldier on his cavalry mount, Jondo, the plainsman, on his big
black horse, and between the two, Esmond Clarenden, neither mounted nor
on foot, but going forward somehow, steady and sure. And beyond these
three, this side of misty mountain peaks, the cloud of golden hair, the
sweet face, with dark eyes looking into mine. I had not been a dreamer,
I had been a fool.

Through Beverly I learned the next day that Ferdinand Ramero had come
into Santa Fe late at night and had left early the next morning. Marcos
Ramero, faultlessly dressed, lounged about the gambling-halls, and
strolled through the sunny Plaza, idly and insolently, as was his
custom. But Gloria Ramero, to whom Marcos long ago ceased to be more
than coldly courteous, had left the city at once for the San Christobal
Valley, to devote herself to the care of the beautiful woman whom her
brother Felix Narveo in his college days had admired so much.

As for Jondo, years ago when we had met Father Josef out by the sandy
arroyo, he had left us to follow the good man somewhere, and had not
come back to the Exchange Hotel until nightfall. Something had come into
his face that day that never left it again. And now that something had
deepened in the glance of his eye and the firm-set mouth. It was
through that meeting with Father Josef that he had first heard of the
supposed death of Mary Marchland St. Vrain, and it was through the
priest in the chapel he had heard that she was still alive.

Neither Beverly nor Bill Banney nor Rex Krane knew what I had heard in
the church concerning Jondo's early career, and I never spoke of it to