On that same Saturday Marguerite Delarue received a letter from Albert
Wellesly saying he would be in Las Plumas the following Tuesday, when
he hoped he would hear from her own lips the answer for which he had
been waiting. She was no nearer a decision than she had been weeks
before, and in her perplexity she at last decided that she must ask
her father's advice. But he was so absorbed in the factional feud that
she could scarcely catch sight of him. In the late afternoon of Sunday
she took little Paul and walked to the mesa east of the town, toward
the Hermosa mountains. For the hundredth time she debated the matter,
for the hundredth time she told herself that he loved her and that she
loved him, that it would please her father, and that there was no
reason why she should not marry him. And for the hundredth time her
misgivings held her back and would not let her say conclusively that
she would be Wellesly's wife. Then she would think that her hesitancy
was because she really preferred not to marry any one, and that she
would always feel the same doubts.
She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not notice the
unusual abstraction of the child. With one chubby fist grasping her
forefinger and the other trailing, head downward, a big yellow
chrysanthemum, he trudged silently by her side, his red fez making a
spot of bright color against her white dress. He was wondering why he
had no mamma. Many times he had talked the matter over with
Marguerite, but she had never been able to explain it to his entire
satisfaction. He accepted her statements when she made them, but as
they did not seem to him to justify the fact, she had to make them all
over again the next time he thought of the subject. That day he had
visited a little playmate who had both a big sister and a mamma, and
as he walked across the mesa with Marguerite his small brain was busy
with the problem and his childish heart was full of longing. He lifted
his serious, puzzled face, with its big, blue, childishly earnest eyes
to his sister, who was as absorbed in her problem as was he in his.
"Say, Daisy, why haven't I got a mamma, just like Janey?"
"Darling, our mamma, yours and mine, has gone to Heaven."
"What did she go there for?"
"Because God wanted her to go there and live with Him."
"Did God take her to Heaven?"
"Yes, dear."
"Well, it was awful mean for Him to do that."
"Oh, my darling! My little Bye-Bye mustn't say such things!
Everything God does is right. Poor mamma was so ill she could not stay
with us any longer, and God took her to Heaven to make her well."
"Is she ill in Heaven?"
"No, dearie. She is well and happy in Heaven, and so is every one who
goes there."
"When I go to Heaven shall I see my mamma?"
"Yes, dear."
The child was silent for a few moments and Marguerite turned again to
her own thoughts. She scarcely heard him when he spoke again:
"Heaven is up in the sky, ain't it, Daisy?"
His eyes were caught by the sunset glow on the Hermosa mountains and
he did not press her for confirmation of his idea. The swelling flanks
and the towers and pinnacles and castellated crags of the rugged
Hermosa range were glowing and flaming with the tenderest, deepest
pink, as though the living granite had been dyed in the blood of
crimson roses. The eastern sky, vivid with seashell tints, hovered so
low that the topmost crags seemed to support its glowing colors. It
was no wonder that the child's mind, already awed and made receptive
by his thoughts of Heaven, was at once filled with the idea that its
gates had been opened before him. He dropped his sister's finger and
went forward a few steps, his eager eyes fixed on the glory that
flamed in the east, and his heart beating wildly with the thought that
if he ran on a little way he could go in and see his mother. Of
course, she would see him coming and she would run out to meet him and
take him in her arms, just as Marguerite did when he came home from
Janey's. Filled with the sudden, imperious impulse, he ran down the
hill on which they were standing, across the dry, sandy bed of a
watercourse, and up the hill on the other side. The miracle of beauty
which dazzled him was of almost daily occurrence, but, baby that he
was, he had never noticed it before.
Marguerite took Wellesly's letter from her pocket when Paul dropped
her hand, and, turning to get the sunset light on the page, read it
over and over. She knew Paul had run on ahead, but thought he was
playing in the arroyo. She folded the letter slowly and put it in her
pocket again and watched for a few moments the glowing banks of color
that filled the western sky. Then she looked down the little hill and
along the arroyo, calling, "Come, Paul! We must go home." But the
sturdy little figure was nowhere in sight. At that moment he was
crossing the second hill beyond. She ran up and down the arroyo
calling, "Paul! Paul!" at the top of her voice. Gathering her white
skirts in one hand, she rushed to the top of the hill and called again
and again. But there was no reply. As she listened, straining forward,
all the earth seemed strangely still. The silence struck back upon her
heart suffocatingly. Over the crest of the next hill Paul heard her
voice and hid behind a big, close clump of feathery mesquite, fearful
lest she should find him and take him home again. Across the arroyo
she ran, and up to the hill-top, where she stood and called and looked
eagerly about. But he, intent on carrying out his plan of reaching the
rosy, glowing gates of Heaven over there such a little way, crouched
close behind the spreading bush and made no answer.
"He would not have gone so far," she thought, anxiously. "He must be
back there in one of those arroyos."
She ran back and hurried farther up and down, first one and then the
other gulch, calling the little one's name and straining her eyes
through the dusk that had begun to gather for a glimpse of his flaxen
curls and red cap. Paul, meanwhile, was scurrying across the hills as
fast as his two fat, determined legs could carry him, straight toward
the deepening, darkening glory upon the mountains.
At last Marguerite decided that he must have turned about, after he
had run a few steps away from her, and gone home. Comforting herself
with this hope, she hurried back, looking about her as she ran, to be
sure that she did not pass him. Flushed and panting, she rushed
through the house and asked the servant if little Bye-Bye had come
home. The maid had not seen him, and the two women looked through the
house and searched the yard and garden, stopping every moment to call
the child. Then they ran out again upon the mesa, where Marguerite
had walked with him, calling and circling about through the gathering
dusk.
When it became quite dark Marguerite, thoroughly frightened, ran back
to the town and hurried down Main street looking for her father. She
met a clerk from his store on the way to tell her that he had just
started to his alfalfa ranch, ten miles down the river, to bring in
the men who were there at work, and would not return until early the
next morning. The clerk quickly got together a half dozen young men
and they set out for the mesa. The mother of one and the sister of
another stayed with Marguerite, and by dint of constant persuasion
kept her at home.
At daybreak the party returned, worn out by their long tramp. The moon
had risen about ten o'clock, and by its brilliant light they had
searched carefully the hills and arroyos within two or three miles of
the town, but had not found a trace of the lost child. Main street had
slept on its arms that night. Men of both parties, wrapped in their
blankets, with revolvers and shot-guns and rifles under their hands,
had dotted the court-house yard, had lain on the sidewalks near the
jail, and had slept on the floors of shops and offices along both
sides of Main street. Feeling had risen so high that a hasty word, or
the unguarded movement of a hand toward a pistol butt, was likely to
cause the beginning of the battle. The Democrats had telegraphed to
Santa Fe and learned that the order of the court making Joe Davis
sheriff, having left there by mail on Saturday, should have reached
Las Plumas on Sunday. So they announced that they would wait until the
arrival of the mail from the north on Monday at noon, and that if the
Republicans did not then vacate the office they would march upon the
court-house, seize the clerk of the court, take forcible possession of
the jail, and install Joe Davis in the office of sheriff. They swore
they would do all this before sunset Monday night if they had to soak
the sand of the streets a foot deep in blood. The Republicans grimly
said that they would not give up the office without the official order
of the court if they had to kill every Democrat in the town to hold
it.
When the party searching for little Paul walked down Main street in
the dim, early light, their footsteps breaking loudly upon the morning
silence, men jumped to their feet with revolvers at ready, and set
faces, crowned with disheveled hair, looked out from doorways whence
came the click of cocking triggers. As the party was divided in its
political affiliations, the young men knew that it would be safer for
them to separate and for each to walk down Main street on that side to
which his elders belonged. And so it happened that armed men, jumping
from their blankets with revolvers drawn and cocked, and sternly
commanding "halt," heard on both sides of the street at the same time
how Pierre Delarue's little boy was lost on the mesa. Over and over
again the young men told their story as they walked down the street,
and group after group of armed and expectant men asked anxiously,
"What's the matter?" "What's up?" "What's happened?" As they listened,
the angry resolve in their faces softened into sympathy and concern,
and everywhere there were low exclamations of "We must hunt him up!"
"We must all turn out!"
When Pierre Delarue returned he found the feud forgotten. Men were
running hither and thither getting horses and carriages ready, a long
line of men and boys straggled out across the mesa, the Main street
barrier, which had risen sky high when he left the town, had sunk to
the middle of the earth, and men who, a few hours before, would have
shot to kill, had either opened mouth to the other, rode or walked
side by side, talking together of the lost child, as they hurried out
to the hills to join in the search.
Mrs. John Daniels, as soon as she rose from the breakfast table,
hastened to Mrs. Judge Harlin's house, and together they went to offer
sympathy and neighborly kindness to Marguerite. Other women came, and
their tear-dyed lids told how the mother-sympathy in their hearts had
already opened the flood-gates of feeling. None of them thought it
possible that the child could be found alive, though they talked
encouragingly with Marguerite. But among themselves they said, "Poor
girl! It will kill her!"
Marguerite wished to join the searchers on the mesa, but the women
would not let her go. She had not slept during the night, and her
usually blooming face was pale and drawn and her eyes were wide and
brilliant. When her father came she appealed to him.
"No, my dear, you can do no good out there. Stay here and be ready to
take care of him when we bring him home. We shall find him, my dear,
we shall find him. Keep up your courage and save all your strength for
the time when it will be needed."
So Marguerite stood on her veranda and watched the people stringing
out to the hills, men and boys and even a few women, on foot, on
horseback, in carts and carriages and wagons. She could not shut from
her eyes the vision of her little Bye-Bye alone, far out on the hills
in the darkness and cold--the little baby Bye-Bye, who, if he wakened
in the night, had always to be taken into her own bed and cuddled in
her arms before he could sleep again.
Judge Truman, of the district court, reached Las Plumas on Sunday and
prepared to open the court and call the case of Emerson Mead on Monday
morning. The sheriff and his deputy brought Mead out of the jail and
started to conduct him to the court-house. Suddenly the bell of the
Methodist church began to ring violently; a moment later that of the
Catholic convent added its sharp tones, and the fire bell, over by the
plaza, joined their clamor.
"What are those bells ringing for, John," said Mead to Daniels.
"Haven't you heard about Frenchy Delarue's kid? He was lost on the
mesa last night and the whole town is turning out to hunt him. They
are ringing the bells to call out everybody that hasn't gone already."
Mead stopped short at the words "Frenchy Delarue's kid."
"Little Paul Delarue?" he asked in quick, sharp tones.
"Yes, the little fellow with the yellow curls."
Without a word Mead turned sharply on his heel and ran with long
strides down Main street toward Delarue's house. The hands of the two
men went instinctively to their revolvers, then their eyes met, and
Daniels said:
"I guess we'd better not touch him, Jim."
At that moment Judge Truman turned the corner, just from the
court-house, and saw the escaping prisoner.
"Let him go, Mr. Sheriff," he said. "His help will be valuable in the
search. Better go yourself, and take as many with you as you can. I
have adjourned court and told everybody to hurry out to the mesa, and
I'm going myself as soon as I can get a horse."
Emerson Mead ran at the top of his speed to the Delarue house, going
there without thought of why he did it, feeling only that Marguerite
was in deepest trouble, and all his mind filled with the idea that it
would kill her if anything happened to the child. As he entered the
gate Marguerite saw him and rushed down from the veranda.
"How did it happen?" he asked hastily.
"I took him out to walk with me on the mesa yesterday afternoon, and
he slipped away from me and I could not find him."
"Can you tell me where you saw him last?"
"Let me go with you! I can show you the very place!"
"Are you strong enough? Can you stand it? You are very pale!"
"Yes, yes! It will not be so hard as to stay here and wait! Let me go
with you and help you!"
"Come, then, quick!"
She snatched her little white sunbonnet from a chair on the porch and
they hurried off. Walking swiftly and silently they passed through the
back streets of the town and across vacant lots and hurried over the
rising plain until they came to the place in the rolling hills where
the child had disappeared.
"It was here," said Marguerite. "I am very sure of the place. He stood
beside me and while I was thinking about--something that troubled me,
and reading a letter, he slipped away. I was sure he had only run down
the hill into the arroyo, but when I looked for him, and it seemed
hardly more than a minute, I could not find him."
Mead looked about for footprints, but the ground had been trampled by
scores of feet since the night before, and tracks of shoes in many
sizes covered the sandy earth. A few scattered searchers were near
them, but the great mass of people could be seen in groups and bunches
trailing off over the hills, most of them headed to the northeast. A
shout came along the line and one of the men near by ran across the
hills to learn its cause.
"What had he been talking about?" Mead asked.
"About Heaven and our mother, and if he could see her if he should go
there."
Mead looked about him, thinking there was no clue in that, when his
glance rested upon the towering peaks of the Hermosa range, their
western slopes soft in the violet shadows of the forenoon, their
upreared crags seeming to lean against the very blue of the sky. A
sudden memory from his own childish years flashed into his mind.
"I remember when I was a kid I used to think that if I could only get
to the top of a mountain I could jump from it into the sky and see
God. Children always think Heaven is in the sky, don't they? Maybe he
had some such idea. Let's go straight toward the mountain and see if
we can't find his tracks."
They walked down the hill, and in the sand in the bottom of the arroyo
Mead's quick eye caught a faint depression. He stopped Marguerite as
she was about to step on it, and they knelt together to examine it.
There were other footprints all about, but this one little track had
escaped obliteration, and none had noticed it. Marguerite thought it
was the size and shape of his shoe, and they went on over the hill,
watching the ground closely, but seeing nothing more. A man came
running back to tell them that a child's footprints had been found
near the mountain road, two miles or more to the northward. Marguerite
wished to go there at once.
"Yes, certainly, go if you wish," said Mead, "but I think I will stay
here. If they have found his tracks there are plenty of people there
to follow them, but I am anxious to follow this lead."
Marguerite said she would stay with him, and the others hurried over
the mesa to the mountain road, leaving the two alone. They walked
slowly up and down the hills toward the mountains, finding in one
place a little curved depression, as if from the toe of the child's
shoe. And presently, close behind a clump of bushes, they saw two
little shoe-prints clearly defined in the sand. They were so close to
the bush that they had escaped detection.
"Why, he must have hid here while I was looking for him!" Marguerite
exclaimed, "for I came to the top of the hill, not more than twenty
feet away! He must have hid behind this big bush and kept very still
when he heard me calling, and that was how he got away from me!"
They went on over the hills, Mead keeping a fairly straight course
toward the mountains, and constantly running his eye along the ground
in front of them. Twice he saw faint depressions in the sand, partly
obliterated, but enough to make him think they were on the right
track. At last, in a wide, sandy arroyo, he paused before a track in
the farther edge of the sand which turned up the canyon.
"What time was it when you lost him?" he asked.
"Just at sunset. I remember, because the red was on the mountains and
the sky was very brilliant."
"Then by the time he had traveled this far it was dark and this wide
sandy streak was lighter and brighter than the hill up there, covered
with bushes. Come on!"
Mead rushed up the canyon, almost on the run, his eye catching a
toe-print here, a heel track there, a sunken pebble in one spot, a
crushed blade of grass beside the sand in another. The young men who
had gone out first had been through this arroyo the night before, when
the moonlight did not show the faint trail. Since sunrise the
searching parties had gone farther toward the north, covering ground
which the other party had left untouched, for every one believed,
since the failure of the first expedition, that the child must have
turned in that direction and tried to go home.
Mead and Marguerite followed the winding of the arroyo for a mile or
more, and at last, where it headed and the ground was covered by a
thicker growth of bushes, the little tracks climbed the hill. By that
time they were well beyond the farthest point toward the mountains
which any one else believed the child could have reached, and there
were no footprints of previous searchers to perplex their eyes or blot
out such traces as they might find. From the top of the hill they saw
the great body of men again scattering out over the mesa, and knew
that they had been disappointed.
It was some minutes before Mead found any indication of the trail on
the hill. Then the child seemed to have wandered about in the dark
without purpose. For a long time he had kept to the top of the hill,
going backward and forward and circling about, and at last following
its crest toward the mountains.
"This must have been after the moon rose," Mead said, "and while it
was still so low that only the top of the hill was light."
After a time the track turned down the hillside again, and the man and
the girl followed, eagerly scanning the ground for the faint traces of
the child's feet. Slowly and carefully they walked along, sometimes
able to follow the trail without difficulty for long distances, and
again keeping it only by the greatest care. Marguerite noticed that
Mead looked for it always toward the south, and asked him why he did
it.
"Because the moon was considerably past the full and shone more from
the south, and he would have kept his face toward it."
Up and down the hills they went and along the arroyos, the trail
sometimes heading straight for the mountains, and again turning toward
the south, sometimes following the sandy watercourse beds and
sometimes the hilltops, and again crossing them at varying angles.
Once they lost it entirely, and searched over a wide area in vain,
until Marguerite found a shred of brown linen hanging upon the thorny
limb of a mesquite bush.
"This is from his dress!" she exclaimed.
About the same time Mead saw a number of dog-like tracks, all going in
the same direction, and a sickening fear rose in him so great that he
scarcely dared sweep with his eyes the arroyo into which they were
descending. He did not let Marguerite see that he had noticed anything
unusual, and she followed him silently, wondering how he could trace
the trail so rapidly. For he knew that he need not stop to look for
the child's footprints. He could follow swiftly, almost on the run,
the plain trail of the dog-like tracks down the sandy arroyo.
Presently she saw him stoop and pick up something from the ground. He
turned and held out to her a large yellow chrysanthemum. She ran to
him and seized it eagerly.
"Yes, I picked it as we were leaving home yesterday. He wanted it and
I gave it to him. And he clung to it all this way! I wonder what made
him drop it finally!"
Mead did not tell her of the fear that probably had relaxed the little
muscles and sent the weary feet flying over the sand. He could think
of no word of encouragement to say, for he felt no hope in his heart.
But her face had lighted with the finding of the flower and she seemed
to feel almost as though it were a call from the child. She pressed
the yellow bloom to her face and thrust it into her bosom. Then she
dropped upon her knees and hid her face in her hands. Mead felt that
she was praying, and impulsively he took off his hat and bent his
head, but his eyes still swept the arroyo in front of them. As they
went on he noticed that the child's tracks had been almost
obliterated. Here and there a toe print, pressed deeply into the sand,
showed that the little one had been running. At last Mead stopped
beside a large flat stone. The child's footprints showed plainly
beside it. And the dog-like tracks ranged in a half circle six or
eight feet distant.
"He must have sat down here to rest," said Mead, hoping she would not
notice the other tracks. But she saw them and looked at him with
sudden fear in her eyes. A single word shaped itself upon her
whitening lips.
"Coyotes?"
He nodded, saying, "I have been watching their tracks for the last
mile."
She threw her hands to her head with a despairing gesture. He moved
toward her, filled with the yearning to take her in his arms and
comfort her. But he remembered that she was to be married to Albert
Wellesly and his hands dropped to his sides. He turned to examine the
ground about the stone and saw in the sand many little holes and
scratches. He noticed, too, some pebbles in front of the coyote
tracks.
"Look!" he exclaimed. "The brave little man! He threw stones at the
coyotes and kept them off! He must have had a stick, too, for see
these little holes in the sand. He probably stood up and thrust the
stick toward them."
"Could he keep them off so that they would not attack him?"
"Yes, I think he could. As long as--as he kept moving they would only
follow him."
A little farther on they found many deep impressions of the child's
feet close together, as if he had been jumping, and after that the
coyote tracks disappeared.
"He must have jumped at them and shouted and thrust out his stick,"
said Mead, "and frightened them away. He might have done that after he
found he could drive them back. And this was probably after daybreak,
when they would be less likely to follow him. We can't be so very far
behind him now, for he would be tired and could not walk fast."
"Come, hurry! Let us go on!" urged Marguerite,
He looked at her doubtfully. Her face was drawn and white under her
sunbonnet, notwithstanding her long walk in the hot sun, and dark
rings circled her eyes.
"Have you strength to go farther? Hadn't you better wait here?"
"No, no! I can go on! Come, let's hurry!" and she moved forward.
"Then lean on my arm. That will help you some."
"No, thank you. I might keep you back. You go on and follow the trail
as fast as you can and I will come behind. Don't stop a minute for
me."
The trail left the arroyo and climbed the hill again and from its
summit they could see the crowd of people far toward the north
scattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountain
road. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, while
across the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. A
vague remembrance came into Marguerite's mind that there was to have
been trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing of
that train, and that she had been anxious on her father's account. But
that all seemed years ago, and the remembrance of it quickly passed.
The trail wandered on, keeping to the hilltops for some time. Mead
told Marguerite that the boy had been cold in the early morning and
had stayed on the hilltops because it was warmer there when the sun
first rose. Then the trail went up and down again, sometimes over the
hills and sometimes following the arroyos, sometimes turning on itself
and going back, and sometimes circling about in long curves, facing by
turns all points of the compass. Along arroyos, and on hillsides that
were comparatively barren and sandy it was easily followed. At other
times Mead lost it entirely and they would wander about, searching the
ground closely. Once Marguerite found the faint track of the shoe when
Mead was going away in another direction, and she called him back
delightedly. For long distances he would spring rapidly along a trail
so faint that it was only by close scrutiny she could see anything,
his mind unconsciously marking the distance from one trace to where
the next should be, his eye skimming the ground and his quick sight
catching the crushed flower stem, the sunken pebble, the broken blade
of grass, the tiny depression of heel or toe that marked the way.
The girl toiled on after him, sometimes falling far behind and again
catching up and walking by his side. The slumbrous heat of the October
day filled the clear, dry air and the sun shone fiercely, unveiled by
a single vaporous cloud. Marguerite's mouth was dry and her throat was
parched and all her body called for water. She thought of the thirst
and the hunger that must be tormenting the little thing that had been
wandering over those sun-flooded hills, with neither food nor drink
nor sight of friendly face, for so many hours, and the agony of the
thought seemed more than she could endure. Sharp, lightning-like pains
cracked through her brain, and a dizzy, chaotic whirl filled her head.
She put her hands to her forehead and stopped short on the hillside,
the fear flying through her mind that she might be going mad. Mead saw
her and came quickly to her side, alarmed by her white, tense face and
the wild look of agony in her eyes. Her lips were pale and dry.
"Do not stop!" she pleaded. "It is nothing but a little headache.
Don't stop a minute for me. Five minutes may mean the difference
between life and death for my little boy. Hurry on, and I will come
close behind you."
The fear of delaying her companion gave her fresh strength and she
went on beside him. In the next arroyo they found a footprint deeply
marked in a bed of sand. As Mead glanced at it he saw some grains of
sand fall down from the rim of the depression. He called Marguerite's
attention to them.
"We must be close behind him," he said, "or that sand would not still
be trembling on the edge like that."
"If we only had some water for him!" said Marguerite. "He will need it
so badly."
Mead thought that the child would probably be beyond the need of human
aid when they should find him, but he merely answered: "Yes, I ought
to have thought of it, but we started so hurriedly." His only hope was
that they might be in time to save the little worn body from the
coyotes. The trail crossed the arroyo and essayed the hill. It was
steep and had been too much for the child's ebbing strength. The track
went down into the valley again and part way up the other side, then
back and across the arroyo, and took the hill once more at a long
slant. They lost the trail there and walked about for a few minutes,
searching the ground closely for signs of the little feet. Marguerite
went on to the top of the hill, and Mead, glancing toward her, saw her
standing stiff and still as if turned to stone, holding a little
forward her tightly clasped hands. She gave a low cry and he sprang to
her side. A moving splotch of red showed above a clump of greasewood
half way down the hill. Then a tottering little figure in a torn and
ragged linen kilt moved slowly down the hillside, lifting its feet
wearily, but still going on.
"Paul! Paul! My darling!" A ringing call broke from Marguerite's lips
and she rushed down the hill at a pace which even Mead's running
strides could barely equal. The boy heard her cry, turned, swayed on
trembling legs, and fell to the ground. She snatched the child to her
breast and pressed her face to his. He smiled faintly and wearily, and
his parched, cracked lips whispered, "some drink!" and then his eyes
closed and his head fell back upon her arm. The gladness in her face
froze into terror and she turned to Mead in despairing appeal.
"Is he dead?" she whispered.
The man bent one ear to the child's heart.
"No, he is not dead, nor dying. His heart seems to be beating
naturally, but feebly. If we only had some water!"
She held the child toward him, speaking rapidly: "Take him in your
arms and run to where the others are. Doctor Long is there, and
somebody will have water."
He looked at her anxiously. "But you?" he exclaimed.
She answered with a sharp insistence in her tones, leaning toward him,
the words flying from her lips:
"Take him and run, run! Never mind me. I will come behind you. Go, go
quickly!"
He cradled the unconscious child in his arms, running with long
strides up hill and down, aiming a straight course toward the bulk of
the searching party, which he could see from the hilltops, a multitude
of moving dots straggling back into the hills where he and Marguerite
had first followed the footprints. As he ran, his mind went back over
the winding trail they had followed, and he calculated that the child
had traveled not less than a dozen miles since sunset of the night
before. He glanced over the hills at the crowds beyond and thought it
must be some four or five miles to the nearest one. He saw a single
horseman off to his left who seemed much nearer, but he decided it
would be safer to run straight for the greater number, lest the man
might turn about and ride away without seeing him. But the horseman
presently came in his direction and soon Mead saw that the man was
looking toward him. He waved his hat and halloed, and the man
evidently saw and understood, for he spurred his horse into a gallop.
As he came nearer Mead thought there was something familiar in his
attitude and the outline of his body. But he did not look closely, for
he was running through a growth of prickly pear cactus and needed to
watch his footsteps. Scarcely more than two hundred yards separated
them when the horseman leaned forward in his saddle, studying keenly
the figure of the man on foot. A look of cruel, snarling triumph
flashed over his face and a Spanish oath broke from his lips. He
whipped out a revolver and leveled it at the running man with the
child in his arms. Mead had been looking at the ground, choosing his
course, and then had glanced at Paul's face for a moment. When he
raised his eyes again he saw the shining muzzle of a revolver pointed
at his breast and above it the savage, revengeful, triumphant face of
Antone Colorow.