But this was the last home-coming for the folks at Holy Cross, and far away across the desert Jim's riders heard the bell—the minute bell tolling soft for the dead. The people met them at the gates, but all the boys uncovered, riding slow. No beef would be killed that night, no lights would shine, no guitars would strum for the dance.
Inside the main gate Jim's servant took his horse, and the lad walked on with clashing spurs to meet the old padre at the door of the dining-hall.
"Take off your spurs," said the priest, "come softly."
So he followed the padre across the bare, whitewashed dining-hall, and on along the cloister of the palm tree court. He heard the death-cry keening out of the shadows, the bell tolled, and he went on through the dark rooms, until he came to the señora, with women kneeling about the bed, and candles lighted at her head and feet.
The daybreak was bitter cold when Jim came out into the palm tree court, shivering while he watched the little, far-up clouds flushed with the dawn.
He felt that something was all wrong in the house, with the hollow echoes, every time he moved, crashing back from out of the dark. Then in the black darkness of the rooms he saw a lighted candle moving, slow through the air.
"Who's there!" he shouted, and at that the light came straight at him with something grey behind. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Then he saw it was Sheriff Bryant.
"Easy, boy, easy!" says Dick in his slow Texan drawl; "I cal'late, Jim, we may as well have coffee, eh, boy?"
So he led Jim into the dining-hall, where he had cooked some coffee on the brazier. He set his candle down on the long table, and beside it a stick of sealing-wax and a bundle of tape.