She turned one glance of hate and fear upon her rescuer, and moved toward the house.
"She means you?" asked the padre.
"Oh, she is crazy, that old Indian," cried Juanita; "always she makes me afraid. The Señor Bryton she never perhaps has seen until this minute. That is her thanks that he pull her from the fire!"
The padre turned for one level look at the pale face of Ana.
"Your name is Bryton?" he then said, quietly. "Will you, Señor Bryton, see that these savages do not attempt another roasting, while I look to the woman who is dying?"
Bryton turned to Juanita.
"Is it so bad as that?" he asked. "The Doña Raquel—"
"We think she is better this evening; still, it may be a fever coming; one never knows. Ah! there are my father and the men."
Don Enrico Cordoba and some vaqueros rode madly through the corral and into the place of the huge bonfire and the still kneeling Indians. Now that their white heat of passion was over, they remembered only the beating they would get, and crouched doggedly where the padre had bidden them; the younger ones wept with fear when Juanita told her father the story.
"Holy God!" he shouted in a rage, breaking in on her recital. "In my house to trample on my family and drag a woman to the fire! Tomás, count every head and remember every name. In three days every one shall be tied to a tree and whipped; if one runs away, she shall be caught and whipped twice,—once here on the ranch, and once on the Mission plaza of San Juan, on a Sunday after mass. You cattle, you dogs, you devils, begone from my sight!"