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 Don Geronimo's peril had been put into the background of his thoughts. Here he read, as plainly as from a printed page, something that brought it to the front again with sudden rush. There was no mistaking Don Geronimo's hat with its broad band of silver cloth; there was not another like it at San Fernando. While Padre Ignacio pressed northward into the wooded canyon, Don Geronimo's captors were headed to the south, striking for the mountains called Santa Monica, on the farther side of the broad valley, which rose higher as they reached toward the sea.

Yet it might be that Padre Ignacio had seen this divergence from the expected, and had followed. Juan dismounted for a closer examination of the ground in the open places where the shadows of the bushes did not interfere. There was no mule-track to be found. If Padre Ignacio had come after the horsemen, the distinctive footprint of his animal would have been seen without trouble. It was but a little way back to the road which these vengeful young men had followed from the mission; Juan back-tracked them, bent on learning beyond any doubt that Padre Ignacio had gone on to the north. If mule-tracks anywhere between there and the beaten road these riders had left proved that Padre Ignacio had picked up the trail, then Juan would have no further duty in the matter, let his misgivings be what they might.

But there was no track of unshod mule in the hoof-torn soft earth. In the dusty main road,