And this legitimate successor of the grave Mexican Alcaldes, having thus
delivered his impartial opinion, rode away.

Meanwhile, Concho the redoubtable, Concho the fortunate, spared neither
riata nor spur. The way was dark, the trail obscure and at times
even dangerous, and Concho, familiar as he was with these mountain
fastnesses, often regretted his sure-footed Francisquita. "Care not,
O Concho," he would say to himself, "'tis but a little while, only a
little while, and thou shalt have another Francisquita to bless thee.
Eh, skipjack, there was a fine music to thy dancing. A dollar for an
ounce,--'tis as good as silver, and merrier." Yet for all his good
spirits he kept a sharp lookout at certain bends of the mountain trail;
not for assassins or brigands, for Concho was physically courageous, but
for the Evil One, who, in various forms, was said to lurk in the Santa
Cruz Range, to the great discomfort of all true Catholics. He recalled
the incident of Ignacio, a muleteer of the Franciscan Friars, who,
stopping at the Angelus to repeat the Credo, saw Luzbel plainly in the
likeness of a monstrous grizzly bear, mocking him by sitting on his
haunches and lifting his paws, clasped together, as if in prayer.
Nevertheless, with one hand grasping his reins and his rosary, and the
other clutching his whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so rapidly
that he reached the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining
the far-off Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland,
he descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of
red rock and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had left
it that morning; there was no trace of recent human visitation. Revolver
in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, peered behind
trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and manzanita, and listened. There
was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind over the pines below
him. For a while he paced backward and forward with a vague sense of