Chesterton bethought him of the medicine case Miss Armitage had forced
upon him. "I have given opium to the men for dysentery," he said. "Would
opium help you?"

The priest sprang at him and pushed him out of the door and toward the
saddle-bags.

"My children," he cried, to the silent group in the plaza, "God has sent
a miracle!"

After an hour at the bedside the priest said, "He will live," and knelt,
and the mother of the boy and the villagers knelt with him. When
Chesterton raised his eyes, he found that the landlord, who had been
silently watching while the two men struggled with death for the life of
his son, had disappeared. But he heard, leaving the village along the
trail to Mayaguez, the sudden clatter of a pony's hoofs. It moved like a
thing driven with fear.

The priest strode out into the moonlight. In the recovery of the child
he saw only a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer, and he could not
too quickly bring home the lesson to his parishioners. Amid their
murmurs of wonder and gratitude Chesterton rode away. To the kindly care
of the priest he bequeathed El Capitan. With him, also, he left the gold
pieces which were to pay for the fresh pony.

A quarter of a mile outside the village three white figures confronted
him. Two who stood apart in the shadow shrank from observation, but the
landlord, seated bareback upon a pony that from some late exertion was
breathing heavily, called to him to halt.