With Hoops of Steel

by Florence Finch Kelly

  CHAPTER XXI

  On that same Saturday Marguerite Delarue received a letter from AlbertWellesly saying he would be in Las Plumas the following Tuesday, whenhe hoped he would hear from her own lips the answer for which he hadbeen waiting. She was no nearer a decision than she had been weeksbefore, and in her perplexity she at last decided that she must askher father's advice. But he was so absorbed in the factional feud thatshe could scarcely catch sight of him. In the late afternoon of Sundayshe took little Paul and walked to the mesa east of the town, towardthe Hermosa mountains. For the hundredth time she debated the matter,for the hundredth time she told herself that he loved her and that sheloved him, that it would please her father, and that there was noreason why she should not marry him. And for the hundredth time hermisgivings held her back and would not let her say conclusively thatshe would be Wellesly's wife. Then she would think that her hesitancywas because she really preferred not to marry any one, and that shewould always feel the same doubts.

  She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not notice theunusual abstraction of the child. With one chubby fist grasping herforefinger and the other trailing, head downward, a big yellowchrysanthemum, he trudged silently by her side, his red fez making aspot of bright color against her white dress. He was wondering why hehad no mamma. Many times he had talked the matter over withMarguerite, but she had never been able to explain it to his entiresatisfaction. He accepted her statements when she made them, but asthey did not seem to him to justify the fact, she had to make them allover again the next time he thought of the subject. That day he hadvisited a little playmate who had both a big sister and a mamma, andas he walked across the mesa with Marguerite his small brain was busywith the problem and his childish heart was full of longing. He liftedhis serious, puzzled face, with its big, blue, childishly earnest eyesto 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 staywith 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 whogoes 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 toher 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 andhe did not press her for confirmation of his idea. The swelling flanksand the towers and pinnacles and castellated crags of the ruggedHermosa range were glowing and flaming with the tenderest, deepestpink, as though the living granite had been dyed in the blood ofcrimson roses. The eastern sky, vivid with seashell tints, hovered solow that the topmost crags seemed to support its glowing colors. Itwas no wonder that the child's mind, already awed and made receptiveby his thoughts of Heaven, was at once filled with the idea that itsgates had been opened before him. He dropped his sister's finger andwent forward a few steps, his eager eyes fixed on the glory thatflamed in the east, and his heart beating wildly with the thought thatif he ran on a little way he could go in and see his mother. Ofcourse, she would see him coming and she would run out to meet him andtake him in her arms, just as Marguerite did when he came home fromJaney's. Filled with the sudden, imperious impulse, he ran down thehill on which they were standing, across the dry, sandy bed of awatercourse, and up the hill on the other side. The miracle of beautywhich dazzled him was of almost daily occurrence, but, baby that hewas, he had never noticed it before.

  Marguerite took Wellesly's letter from her pocket when Paul droppedher hand, and, turning to get the sunset light on the page, read itover and over. She knew Paul had run on ahead, but thought he wasplaying in the arroyo. She folded the letter slowly and put it in herpocket again and watched for a few moments the glowing banks of colorthat filled the western sky. Then she looked down the little hill andalong the arroyo, calling, "Come, Paul! We must go home." But thesturdy little figure was nowhere in sight. At that moment he wascrossing the second hill beyond. She ran up and down the arroyocalling, "Paul! Paul!" at the top of her voice. Gathering her whiteskirts in one hand, she rushed to the top of the hill and called againand again. But there was no reply. As she listened, straining forward,all the earth seemed strangely still. The silence struck back upon herheart suffocatingly. Over the crest of the next hill Paul heard hervoice and hid behind a big, close clump of feathery mesquite, fearfullest she should find him and take him home again. Across the arroyoshe ran, and up to the hill-top, where she stood and called and lookedeagerly about. But he, intent on carrying out his plan of reaching therosy, glowing gates of Heaven over there such a little way, crouchedclose behind the spreading bush and made no answer.

  "He would not have gone so far," she thought, anxiously. "He must beback there in one of those arroyos."

  She ran back and hurried farther up and down, first one and then theother gulch, calling the little one's name and straining her eyesthrough the dusk that had begun to gather for a glimpse of his flaxencurls and red cap. Paul, meanwhile, was scurrying across the hills asfast as his two fat, determined legs could carry him, straight towardthe deepening, darkening glory upon the mountains.

  At last Marguerite decided that he must have turned about, after hehad run a few steps away from her, and gone home. Comforting herselfwith this hope, she hurried back, looking about her as she ran, to besure that she did not pass him. Flushed and panting, she rushedthrough the house and asked the servant if little Bye-Bye had comehome. The maid had not seen him, and the two women looked through thehouse and searched the yard and garden, stopping every moment to callthe child. Then they ran out again upon the mesa, where Margueritehad walked with him, calling and circling about through the gatheringdusk.

  When it became quite dark Marguerite, thoroughly frightened, ran backto the town and hurried down Main street looking for her father. Shemet a clerk from his store on the way to tell her that he had juststarted to his alfalfa ranch, ten miles down the river, to bring inthe men who were there at work, and would not return until early thenext morning. The clerk quickly got together a half dozen young menand they set out for the mesa. The mother of one and the sister ofanother stayed with Marguerite, and by dint of constant persuasionkept her at home.

  At daybreak the party returned, worn out by their long tramp. The moonhad risen about ten o'clock, and by its brilliant light they hadsearched carefully the hills and arroyos within two or three miles ofthe town, but had not found a trace of the lost child. Main street hadslept on its arms that night. Men of both parties, wrapped in theirblankets, with revolvers and shot-guns and rifles under their hands,had dotted the court-house yard, had lain on the sidewalks near thejail, and had slept on the floors of shops and offices along bothsides of Main street. Feeling had risen so high that a hasty word, orthe unguarded movement of a hand toward a pistol butt, was likely tocause the beginning of the battle. The Democrats had telegraphed toSanta Fe and learned that the order of the court making Joe Davissheriff, having left there by mail on Saturday, should have reachedLas Plumas on Sunday. So they announced that they would wait until thearrival of the mail from the north on Monday at noon, and that if theRepublicans did not then vacate the office they would march upon thecourt-house, seize the clerk of the court, take forcible possession ofthe jail, and install Joe Davis in the office of sheriff. They sworethey would do all this before sunset Monday night if they had to soakthe sand of the streets a foot deep in bl
ood. The Republicans grimlysaid that they would not give up the office without the official orderof the court if they had to kill every Democrat in the town to holdit.

  When the party searching for little Paul walked down Main street inthe dim, early light, their footsteps breaking loudly upon the morningsilence, men jumped to their feet with revolvers at ready, and setfaces, crowned with disheveled hair, looked out from doorways whencecame the click of cocking triggers. As the party was divided in itspolitical affiliations, the young men knew that it would be safer forthem to separate and for each to walk down Main street on that side towhich his elders belonged. And so it happened that armed men, jumpingfrom their blankets with revolvers drawn and cocked, and sternlycommanding "halt," heard on both sides of the street at the same timehow Pierre Delarue's little boy was lost on the mesa. Over and overagain 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 wererunning hither and thither getting horses and carriages ready, a longline of men and boys straggled out across the mesa, the Main streetbarrier, which had risen sky high when he left the town, had sunk tothe middle of the earth, and men who, a few hours before, would haveshot to kill, had either opened mouth to the other, rode or walkedside by side, talking together of the lost child, as they hurried outto 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 offersympathy and neighborly kindness to Marguerite. Other women came, andtheir tear-dyed lids told how the mother-sympathy in their hearts hadalready opened the flood-gates of feeling. None of them thought itpossible that the child could be found alive, though they talkedencouragingly with Marguerite. But among themselves they said, "Poorgirl! It will kill her!"

  Marguerite wished to join the searchers on the mesa, but the womenwould not let her go. She had not slept during the night, and herusually blooming face was pale and drawn and her eyes were wide andbrilliant. When her father came she appealed to him.

  "No, my dear, you can do no good out there. Stay here and be ready totake 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 forthe time when it will be needed."

  So Marguerite stood on her veranda and watched the people stringingout to the hills, men and boys and even a few women, on foot, onhorseback, in carts and carriages and wagons. She could not shut fromher eyes the vision of her little Bye-Bye alone, far out on the hillsin the darkness and cold--the little baby Bye-Bye, who, if he wakenedin the night, had always to be taken into her own bed and cuddled inher arms before he could sleep again.

  Judge Truman, of the district court, reached Las Plumas on Sunday andprepared to open the court and call the case of Emerson Mead on Mondaymorning. The sheriff and his deputy brought Mead out of the jail andstarted to conduct him to the court-house. Suddenly the bell of theMethodist church began to ring violently; a moment later that of theCatholic convent added its sharp tones, and the fire bell, over by theplaza, 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 themesa last night and the whole town is turning out to hunt him. Theyare 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 longstrides down Main street toward Delarue's house. The hands of the twomen went instinctively to their revolvers, then their eyes met, andDaniels said:

  "I guess we'd better not touch him, Jim."

  At that moment Judge Truman turned the corner, just from thecourt-house, and saw the escaping prisoner.

  "Let him go, Mr. Sheriff," he said. "His help will be valuable in thesearch. Better go yourself, and take as many with you as you can. Ihave adjourned court and told everybody to hurry out to the mesa, andI'm going myself as soon as I can get a horse."

  Emerson Mead ran at the top of his speed to the Delarue house, goingthere without thought of why he did it, feeling only that Margueritewas in deepest trouble, and all his mind filled with the idea that itwould kill her if anything happened to the child. As he entered thegate 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, andhe 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 gowith you and help you!"

  "Come, then, quick!"

  She snatched her little white sunbonnet from a chair on the porch andthey hurried off. Walking swiftly and silently they passed through theback streets of the town and across vacant lots and hurried over therising plain until they came to the place in the rolling hills wherethe child had disappeared.

  "It was here," said Marguerite. "I am very sure of the place. He stoodbeside 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 downthe hill into the arroyo, but when I looked for him, and it seemedhardly more than a minute, I could not find him."

  Mead looked about for footprints, but the ground had been trampled byscores of feet since the night before, and tracks of shoes in manysizes covered the sandy earth. A few scattered searchers were nearthem, but the great mass of people could be seen in groups and bunchestrailing off over the hills, most of them headed to the northeast. Ashout came along the line and one of the men near by ran across thehills 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 gothere."

  Mead looked about him, thinking there was no clue in that, when hisglance rested upon the towering peaks of the Hermosa range, theirwestern slopes soft in the violet shadows of the forenoon, theirupreared crags seeming to lean against the very blue of the sky. Asudden 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 getto the top of a mountain I could jump from it into the sky and seeGod. Children always think Heaven is in the sky, don't they? Maybe hehad some such idea. Let's go straight toward the mountain and see ifwe can't find his tracks."

  They walked down the hill, and in the sand in the bottom of the arroyoMead's quick eye caught a faint depression. He stopped Marguerite asshe was about to step on it, and they knelt together to examine it.There were other footprints all about, but this one little track hadescaped obliteration, and none had noticed it. Marguerite thought itwas the size and shape of his shoe, and they went on over the hill,watching the ground closely, but seeing nothing more. A man camerunning back to tell them that a child's footprints had been foundnear the mountain road, two miles or more to the northward. Margueritewished to go there at once.

  "Yes, certainly, go if you wish," said Mead, "but I think I will stayhere. If they have found his tracks there are plenty of people thereto follow them, but I am anxious to follow this lead."

  Marguerite said she would stay with him, and the others hurried overthe mesa to the mountain road, leaving the two alone. They walkedslowly up and down the hills toward the mountains, finding in oneplace a little curved depression, as if from the toe of the chi
ld'sshoe. And presently, close behind a clump of bushes, they saw twolittle shoe-prints clearly defined in the sand. They were so close tothe bush that they had escaped detection.

  "Why, he must have hid here while I was looking for him!" Margueriteexclaimed, "for I came to the top of the hill, not more than twentyfeet away! He must have hid behind this big bush and kept very stillwhen he heard me calling, and that was how he got away from me!"

  They went on over the hills, Mead keeping a fairly straight coursetoward the mountains, and constantly running his eye along the groundin front of them. Twice he saw faint depressions in the sand, partlyobliterated, but enough to make him think they were on the righttrack. At last, in a wide, sandy arroyo, he paused before a track inthe 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 andthe sky was very brilliant."

  "Then by the time he had traveled this far it was dark and this widesandy streak was lighter and brighter than the hill up there, coveredwith bushes. Come on!"

  Mead rushed up the canyon, almost on the run, his eye catching atoe-print here, a heel track there, a sunken pebble in one spot, acrushed blade of grass beside the sand in another. The young men whohad gone out first had been through this arroyo the night before, whenthe moonlight did not show the faint trail. Since sunrise thesearching parties had gone farther toward the north, covering groundwhich the other party had left untouched, for every one believed,since the failure of the first expedition, that the child must haveturned in that direction and tried to go home.

  Mead and Marguerite followed the winding of the arroyo for a mile ormore, and at last, where it headed and the ground was covered by athicker growth of bushes, the little tracks climbed the hill. By thattime they were well beyond the farthest point toward the mountainswhich any one else believed the child could have reached, and therewere no footprints of previous searchers to perplex their eyes or blotout such traces as they might find. From the top of the hill they sawthe great body of men again scattering out over the mesa, and knewthat they had been disappointed.

  It was some minutes before Mead found any indication of the trail onthe hill. Then the child seemed to have wandered about in the darkwithout purpose. For a long time he had kept to the top of the hill,going backward and forward and circling about, and at last followingits crest toward the mountains.

  "This must have been after the moon rose," Mead said, "and while itwas 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 andthe girl followed, eagerly scanning the ground for the faint traces ofthe child's feet. Slowly and carefully they walked along, sometimesable to follow the trail without difficulty for long distances, andagain keeping it only by the greatest care. Marguerite noticed thatMead looked for it always toward the south, and asked him why he didit.

  "Because the moon was considerably past the full and shone more fromthe south, and he would have kept his face toward it."

  Up and down the hills they went and along the arroyos, the trailsometimes heading straight for the mountains, and again turning towardthe south, sometimes following the sandy watercourse beds andsometimes 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 thornylimb 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 inthe same direction, and a sickening fear rose in him so great that hescarcely dared sweep with his eyes the arroyo into which they weredescending. He did not let Marguerite see that he had noticed anythingunusual, and she followed him silently, wondering how he could tracethe trail so rapidly. For he knew that he need not stop to look forthe 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. Heturned and held out to her a large yellow chrysanthemum. She ran tohim and seized it eagerly.

  "Yes, I picked it as we were leaving home yesterday. He wanted it andI gave it to him. And he clung to it all this way! I wonder what madehim drop it finally!"

  Mead did not tell her of the fear that probably had relaxed the littlemuscles and sent the weary feet flying over the sand. He could thinkof 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 seemedto feel almost as though it were a call from the child. She pressedthe yellow bloom to her face and thrust it into her bosom. Then shedropped upon her knees and hid her face in her hands. Mead felt thatshe was praying, and impulsively he took off his hat and bent hishead, but his eyes still swept the arroyo in front of them. As theywent on he noticed that the child's tracks had been almostobliterated. Here and there a toe print, pressed deeply into the sand,showed that the little one had been running. At last Mead stoppedbeside a large flat stone. The child's footprints showed plainlybeside it. And the dog-like tracks ranged in a half circle six oreight feet distant.

  "He must have sat down here to rest," said Mead, hoping she would notnotice the other tracks. But she saw them and looked at him withsudden fear in her eyes. A single word shaped itself upon herwhitening lips.

  "Coyotes?"

  He nodded, saying, "I have been watching their tracks for the lastmile."

  She threw her hands to her head with a despairing gesture. He movedtoward her, filled with the yearning to take her in his arms andcomfort her. But he remembered that she was to be married to AlbertWellesly and his hands dropped to his sides. He turned to examine theground about the stone and saw in the sand many little holes andscratches. He noticed, too, some pebbles in front of the coyotetracks.

  "Look!" he exclaimed. "The brave little man! He threw stones at thecoyotes and kept them off! He must have had a stick, too, for seethese little holes in the sand. He probably stood up and thrust thestick 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 onlyfollow him."

  A little farther on they found many deep impressions of the child'sfeet close together, as if he had been jumping, and after that thecoyote 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 hefound 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 farbehind 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 hersunbonnet, notwithstanding her long walk in the hot sun, and darkrings 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 trailas fast as you can and I will come behind. Don't stop a minute forme."

  The trail left the arroyo and climbed the hill again and from itssummit they could see the crowd of people far toward the northscattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountainroad. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, whileacross the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. Avague remembrance came into Marguerite's mind that there was to havebeen trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing ofthat train, and that she had been anxious on her father's account. Butthat all seemed years ago, and the remembrance of it quickly passed.

  The trail wandered on, keeping to the hilltops for some time. Meadtold Marguerite that the boy had been cold in the early morning andhad stayed on the
hilltops because it was warmer there when the sunfirst rose. Then the trail went up and down again, sometimes over thehills and sometimes following the arroyos, sometimes turning on itselfand going back, and sometimes circling about in long curves, facing byturns all points of the compass. Along arroyos, and on hillsides thatwere comparatively barren and sandy it was easily followed. At othertimes Mead lost it entirely and they would wander about, searching theground closely. Once Marguerite found the faint track of the shoe whenMead was going away in another direction, and she called him backdelightedly. For long distances he would spring rapidly along a trailso faint that it was only by close scrutiny she could see anything,his mind unconsciously marking the distance from one trace to wherethe next should be, his eye skimming the ground and his quick sightcatching the crushed flower stem, the sunken pebble, the broken bladeof grass, the tiny depression of heel or toe that marked the way.

  The girl toiled on after him, sometimes falling far behind and againcatching up and walking by his side. The slumbrous heat of the Octoberday filled the clear, dry air and the sun shone fiercely, unveiled bya single vaporous cloud. Marguerite's mouth was dry and her throat wasparched and all her body called for water. She thought of the thirstand the hunger that must be tormenting the little thing that had beenwandering over those sun-flooded hills, with neither food nor drinknor sight of friendly face, for so many hours, and the agony of thethought seemed more than she could endure. Sharp, lightning-like painscracked 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 sawher and came quickly to her side, alarmed by her white, tense face andthe 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 differencebetween life and death for my little boy. Hurry on, and I will comeclose behind you."

  The fear of delaying her companion gave her fresh strength and shewent on beside him. In the next arroyo they found a footprint deeplymarked in a bed of sand. As Mead glanced at it he saw some grains ofsand fall down from the rim of the depression. He called Marguerite'sattention to them.

  "We must be close behind him," he said, "or that sand would not stillbe trembling on the edge like that."

  "If we only had some water for him!" said Marguerite. "He will need itso badly."

  Mead thought that the child would probably be beyond the need of humanaid when they should find him, but he merely answered: "Yes, I oughtto have thought of it, but we started so hurriedly." His only hope wasthat they might be in time to save the little worn body from thecoyotes. The trail crossed the arroyo and essayed the hill. It wassteep and had been too much for the child's ebbing strength. The trackwent down into the valley again and part way up the other side, thenback and across the arroyo, and took the hill once more at a longslant. They lost the trail there and walked about for a few minutes,searching the ground closely for signs of the little feet. Margueritewent on to the top of the hill, and Mead, glancing toward her, saw herstanding stiff and still as if turned to stone, holding a littleforward her tightly clasped hands. She gave a low cry and he sprang toher side. A moving splotch of red showed above a clump of greasewoodhalf way down the hill. Then a tottering little figure in a torn andragged linen kilt moved slowly down the hillside, lifting its feetwearily, but still going on.

  "Paul! Paul! My darling!" A ringing call broke from Marguerite's lipsand she rushed down the hill at a pace which even Mead's runningstrides could barely equal. The boy heard her cry, turned, swayed ontrembling legs, and fell to the ground. She snatched the child to herbreast and pressed her face to his. He smiled faintly and wearily, andhis parched, cracked lips whispered, "some drink!" and then his eyesclosed and his head fell back upon her arm. The gladness in her facefroze 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 beatingnaturally, but feebly. If we only had some water!"

  She held the child toward him, speaking rapidly: "Take him in yourarms and run to where the others are. Doctor Long is there, andsomebody 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, goquickly!"

  He cradled the unconscious child in his arms, running with longstrides up hill and down, aiming a straight course toward the bulk ofthe searching party, which he could see from the hilltops, a multitudeof moving dots straggling back into the hills where he and Margueritehad first followed the footprints. As he ran, his mind went back overthe winding trail they had followed, and he calculated that the childhad traveled not less than a dozen miles since sunset of the nightbefore. He glanced over the hills at the crowds beyond and thought itmust be some four or five miles to the nearest one. He saw a singlehorseman off to his left who seemed much nearer, but he decided itwould be safer to run straight for the greater number, lest the manmight turn about and ride away without seeing him. But the horsemanpresently came in his direction and soon Mead saw that the man waslooking toward him. He waved his hat and halloed, and the manevidently saw and understood, for he spurred his horse into a gallop.As he came nearer Mead thought there was something familiar in hisattitude and the outline of his body. But he did not look closely, forhe was running through a growth of prickly pear cactus and needed towatch his footsteps. Scarcely more than two hundred yards separatedthem when the horseman leaned forward in his saddle, studying keenlythe figure of the man on foot. A look of cruel, snarling triumphflashed over his face and a Spanish oath broke from his lips. Hewhipped out a revolver and leveled it at the running man with thechild in his arms. Mead had been looking at the ground, choosing hiscourse, and then had glanced at Paul's face for a moment. When heraised his eyes again he saw the shining muzzle of a revolver pointedat his breast and above it the savage, revengeful, triumphant face ofAntone Colorow.