‘I’m not goin’ to fall—’ Bart mumbled, but his hand relaxed on the pommel.
Elbert looked forward and back; not a sign of life either way, but the face at the dobe gate was strangely before his inner eyes. Something queerly to do with the song of the corn-dust maiden in that far doorway, it seemed to have for him. His face lifted to the cold gray of the dawn-lit sky. Rurales still following possibly ... ‘mere formality’ ... blank wall ... oval beauty.
Now he was carrying Bart back, leading both horses.
‘I’m taking a chance to get you a berth,’ he gasped, coming in sight of the dobe gateway, now empty.
An aperture in a dobe wall for a gate—face gone. Over the gate as he led the horses into the yard, his eye caught the letters formed of faded tile, ‘El Relicario.’ He fancied the movement of a dress through a low arbor ahead. Still with his burden, he moved toward it.
She was there—in the doorway of a broad low dobe ruin. He seemed at first to see only her wide eyes. And then his Spanish came to him and words inspired by another’s need—pressure he had never felt back of an effort before.
‘Look, Señorita—he must have shelter and care—my companion! Will you not give help to him? I will pay a great price!’
The girl made no sound, her eyes fixed on Bart’s back, where Elbert’s hands pressed a dark saturation.
‘May I take him into your house for shelter, Señorita?’ he panted.
She led the way indoors, halting in a large, all but empty room.