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 apparently followed them to the pastures, is more than I can understand."

"The saddles are gone from the top of the wall," said Juan. "The horses have not gone away without riders."

"What is this?" said Padre Ignacio, alarmed. "Oh well," calmed by his own reasoning again at once, "it only means that the vaqueros have listened to reason and gone with Don Geronimo to gather up the scattered cattle. That is well; there is no further need for investigation, Juan."

"Who is that?" Juan challenged, seeing a shadowy figure close against the wall. He ran forward; an old Indian stepped out into the moonlight, lifting his hand in sign of peace.

"Padre Ignacio, a word!" he whispered, beckoning to the priest.

Padre Ignacio turned from a short exchange of words with the Indian, who at once disappeared around the corner of the corral wall.

"He says the young men put a rope around Don Geronimo," said Padre Ignacio, in slow, fatalistic, heartless words; "he says they have carried him away to the hills."

"It is a bad hour for Don Geronimo," said Juan.

They turned and stood looking toward the hills, rough, jagged as peaks of mountains that stood with their roots sunk into the plain, rising to the dignity of mountains, in fact, as they ranged northward in forbidding expanse. The moonlight was white on