In the kitchen Kit Rhodes was seeking information concerning Clodomiro from Tula, asking if it was true he would fetch the women of Palomitas to petition Rotil.
“Maybe so,” she conceded, “but that work is not for a mind of a white man. Thus I am not telling you Clodomiro is the one to go; his father was what you call a priest,––but not of the church,” she said hastily, “no, of other things.”
Looking at her elfin young face in the flickering light of the hearth fire, he had a realization of vast vistas of “other things” leading backward in her inherited tendencies, the things known by his young comrade but not for the mind of a white man,––not even for the man whom Miguel had trusted with the secret of El Alisal. Gold might occasionally belong to a very sacred shrine, but even sacred gold was not held so close in sanctuary as certain ceremonies dear to the Indian thought. Without further words Kit Rhodes knew that there were locked chambers in the brain of his young partner, and to no white man would be granted the key.
“Well, since he has gone for them, there is nothing to say, though the general may be ill pleased at visitors,” hazarded Kit. “Also you and I know why we should keep all the good will coming our way, and risk none of it on experiments. Go you back to your rest since there is not anything to be done. Clodomiro is at Palomitas by now, and you may as well sleep while the dawn is coming.”
She took the strip of roasted meat he offered her, and went back to her blanket on the tiles at the door of the now empty room.
CHAPTER XV
THE “JUDAS” PRAYER AT MESA BLANCA
Isidro was right when he said Ramon Rotil slept but little, for the very edge of the dawn was scarce showing in the east when he opened his eyes, moved his wounded leg stiffly, and then lay there peering between half-shut eyelids at the first tint of yellow in the sky.