"Go back to your own folks, then, and tell your Daddy Joseph a man just
stole a big bunch of something and rode south with it. He can look after
that man. We can get along somehow. Now go."

The voice was like a growl, and the little Indian maiden shrank back in
the shadow of the wall. The next minute Aunty Boone was rapping softly
on the door of the room whose guest had registered as Jean Deau. Ten
minutes later another horseman left the street beside the hotel and
crossed the Plaza, riding erect and open-faced as only Jondo could ride.
Then the African woman sought out Rex Krane, and in a few brief
sentences told him what had been taking place. All of which Rex was far
too wise to repeat to Beverly and me.

That afternoon it happened that we left Mat Nivers at the hotel, while
Rex Krane and Beverly and I strolled out of town on a well-beaten trail
leading toward the west.

"It looks interestin'. Let's go on a ways," Rex commented, lazily.

Nobody would have guessed from his manner but that he was indulgently
helping us to have a good time with certain restriction as to where we
should go, and what we might say, nor that, of the three, he was the
most alert and full of definite purpose.

We sat down beside the way as a line of burros loaded with firewood from
the mountains trailed slowly by, with their stolid-looking drivers
staring at us in silent unfriendliness.

The last driver was the tall young Indian boy whom I had seen standing
in front of Little Blue Flower in the crowd of the Plaza. He paid no