“Miguel gone! Since when, father? Alas! Too bad! But if a man is in Albuquerque all the night——” he pulled at his moustache.
“Where do you visit in Albuquerque? You busy yourself with gambling, I have no doubt, or with drinking—surely some sin. Where?”
“At Riley’s, father, on the street which has a car. There till midnight. Then, at Georgio’s, for the stupid Riley shuts his door when it is twelve.”
“So? I trust you do not think to throw ashes in my eyes. For I get the truth always, do I not?” Then, suddenly pointing, “I see that you crossed the river on foot.”
Anastacio regarded his boots. They showed a recent wetting, and one end of his serape—from which a small, bright square had been torn—hung as heavy as if it had been trailed in a stream.
“Do you walk to Albuquerque?” inquired Father José, eyeing him narrowly.
The vaquero tried to smile, but it was only a drawing back of his lips from over his white teeth. “Sometimes I walk,” he answered evasively.
“Then the Rio Grande is plainly like a sea for you,” declared the father. “For you are the tint of an unripe lemon.” With that, he walked away.
Instead of searching for the lost Miguel, Señor John rode to Albuquerque that afternoon, that being Father José’s wish. When he returned at sunset, it was with the expected news. Anastacio had not been seen in the town the evening previous. And neither could venison be purchased at a certain little Spanish shop, though the young painter had first winked across a piece of silver and then asked for a cut of the deer brought from Los Morales.
But the day following the hunt began. As many as three Indians reluctantly consented to help, and led by Señor John and the girl on the spotted mustang, made off to the marshes north of the town. Late rains had deepened the ooze of the marshes, and even the road which crossed them was a channel for running water. The two on horseback floundered from one muddy pool to another, while the Pueblos, wound in bright blankets, stationed themselves on a dry eminence and solemnly rotated.