Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/253

 scarred cliff and crumbling ledge; shadows lay penciled in bold strokes along sharp escarpments; great slides of broken granite spread fanwise on the steep slopes, grey and dark-mottled where sage and harsh laurel had taken a melancholy hold.

"I must follow them, I must stay this awful tragedy!" Padre Ignacio said.

"Nothing can be done until daybreak, Padre. I can pick up the trail at the first light of day, and follow it quickly. Before then we could only stumble and grope."

"I must go at once, there will be something to tell me the way. Your horse—fetch him, I will go at once."

"There are many canyons," Juan pointed to the hills, where the dark gashes of the canyons opened down to the plain. "And see—who is to follow them, who is to know which way they went over this trampled ground? I have had much experience in these things, Padre. I tell you earnestly you will waste time and strength by starting now."

"They will go to San Feliciano Canyon, where the horses stray," Padre Ignacio said, decisively. "I will follow."

"I'll go with you, then. That horse the outlaw owned is a wild creature, and hard to manage at times. I saw your mule in the pasture by the milldam as I passed—he will be safer and more sure. Shall I bring him?"

"Hasten with him, then, Juan."

Juan returned with Padre Ignacio's mule to find