Paloma watched the searchers from the roof of her home, and when they returned, gave herself over to tears of rage and desolation. Fortunately, Anastacio came to talk with her at suppertime, and to declare his guiltlessness solemnly. So her unhappiness found a vent. She berated him. She cried that never, never would she marry him. And in the end, when she had said all her say, she stuffed her fingers into her pretty ears and bade him begone.
After that, seven days passed without incident.
The morning of the ninth day following Miguel’s disappearance, Señor John chanced to be painting by the river. At Los Morales the Rio Grande is wide, and the colour of the crumbling dirt banks between which it runs; the colour, too, of the high, crumbling dirt-cliffs that stand back of the pueblo on the west, and the colour of the low, square, flat-roofed adobe houses of the Indian village. Two high, white crosses marked its ford—one being set on the farther shore and one on the near. At the base of the latter the young painter had his easel, and over him, made fast to the cross so as to shade him from the sun, was a huge umbrella, yellower than the river.
As he worked he glanced, now at the shallow stream, and now at his canvas—this as painters do. Suddenly, something close to the bank caught his eye—a greyish something, almost submerged, around which the water purled and played with little whispers. He sprang up in haste, overturning easel and stool, and ran down the narrow, sloping beach which here stretched between river and bank.
There was no need to doubt what he saw. For there, thrust up through the moving water, almost in reach of his hand, was the point of a sharp horn.
His first thought was that Paloma might see it; his next, that Father José must be summoned.
The father came at once, adjusting his spectacles upon his high nose as he hurried along. And when he saw what was lying near the shore, with the water urging it inch by inch downstream, he fell back with a shocked and sorrowful face, murmuring his pity. “The gentle creature!” he said. “I trust I was never over-bitter against him. Though he had green to feed upon, yet he would rather crop at my flowers. Señor, how human!”
“But what is that, Father José?” Señor John pointed to a bit of bright-coloured cloth that was now spread out upon the surface of the water from the tip of the horn. By wading a step and poking at the cloth with the end of his brush-handle, he dislodged it, whereupon it gave a sudden whirl, floated for a few feet, then rode into shore on an eddy.
“Ah, señor!” cried Father José, as he caught it up—and anger succeeded pity on his face. “He thought to throw the little beast where he would be sucked down. But the sands have shifted! And here is telltale proof! Come with me, señor. It requires discussion.” And he led the way hastily to Paloma’s.
What befell at the council needs no particular recounting. Paloma’s mother said little and that in Spanish. Paloma wept and threatened, and vowed that now she truly would not marry Anastacio, though he lived to be as old as the father himself and as rich as the richest man in Albuquerque. As for Señor John, he said little, but listened respectfully to Father José, who spoke chiefly of the law.