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Show By FRANK H. SPEARMAN Frank H. Spearman WNL) Service to the presidio. And my dear mistress, mis-tress, she is lost, lost. And my lovely, love-ly, lovely children! My Carmelita lost forever!" "And Dona Juana, where is she now?" asked the padre patiently. "In the home of her sister, Dona Teresa, at the presidio. I walked all the way back here today to find, if possible, some garments for my unhappy mistress." "And had Don Alfredo no warning warn-ing of this attack?" pursued the padre. I SYNOPSIS ,,frdo wealthy. Spanish owner D . i Vn California rancho, refuses 'SHU veral warnings of a raid by a I (nntlaw Sierra Indians. One day of hi, finally decided to seek the he f (he nearby mission for his c,f,mily, the Indians strike. Don ;andam'(k d Ms tw0 young ' dor S are torn from the arms of nv's faithful maid. Monica, and i ,am Ia away to the hills. Padre "? miss onary friend of the fam-the fam-the ruins 0f the ranC - CHAPTER II Continud a, ' likely hiding from panthers. Don't waste ammunitioa We've none to spare." "All right, Simmle," murmured Pardaloe, addressing the Creek by his nickname, "you stalk him." Minute after minute passed, with Bowie and the scout anxiously waiting. wait-ing. The mere prospect of food had so excited the dormant salivary glands of the hungry men that each minute after the first was almost torture. Yet both knew no more could be done than the Indian would do. If the scout Pardaloe tried to serves of raw venison. As they sat peacefully around their frugal fire they mourned for the tobacco they had squandered in more prosperous days. Deprived of this, their only consolation, con-solation, ' the three indulged in a Barmecide feast of the longed-for weed. The scout descanted on the beauties of well-cured Kentucky leaf crushed in the pipe; Simmie spoke up modestly for willow Killickinnic; Bowie thought just one cigar only one would make him perfectly happy. hap-py. It was while this futile discussion discus-sion was going on that Simmie, lying, ly-ing, like his companions, on his back, pricked up his ears. Next he sat up and began to look around. "What's a matter, Injun?" asked Pardaloe indolently. "What's that noise?" asked the half-breed in turn. "You tell," retorted the scout. Bowie, lost in thought, only heard the questions and listened for sounds. Neither of the whites heard anything, but as the Indian walked quietly toward the edge of the long ledge both men sat up. Simmie, behind a pine tree, looked down the Monica almost shrieked as she clasped her hands. "Warning upon warning, Don Alfredo had! For a week I warned him. The cook told me the attack would come. I begged my master to flee with the family to the presidio. He only laughed. 'Have I not had for a time the boy of the chief Sobriano here in my household?' he would say to me. 'Sobriano will control the young men. He will not allow them to attack at-tack us. We are as safe as Los Alamos, Monica, as they are at the presidio.' help the stalk he might only spoil things. They must wait and lick their hopeful chops. "What's keeping him half an hour like this?" grumbled Pardaloe. "Half an hour nothing, Ben. Patience," Pa-tience," counseled Bowie. The words had barely left his lips when they heard the distant crack of a rifle. In a moment both men were running run-ning in the direction from which the report had come. It was some job to keep up with Pardaloe's long legs. He was as 1 ..padre &rst make sure bad In-91 In-91 ,1. re gone. They might kill 1 , cautioned Diego. n0 exclaimed the padre, as , impatience as he ever allowed 5" to stray. "That is nothing, fy might kill me, Padre." sug- ,ESted Diego darkly. 8 " the wind, blowing in a gust, dies suddenly into calm the mis- veteran changed. "True, Di- ! 1" he murmured, gently re- ' ;cUul of himself. "You might in danger. Remain here, hidden I He wheat. I will go forward and port if there is danger." mpn were striving for their "Only Sunday night the cook said to me: Tomorrow they cornel" I told Don Alfredo. The Senora begged him to heed the warnings. He was impatient but he yielded. 'Tomorrow morning, then, we will go, querida mia,' he told her. And then next morning when he went to get the horses they swept down on us. Woe to Los Alamos!" graceful as a camel, but the ground he could cover in an emergency was a caution. When, by dint of calling and answering, two hungry men found the Indian, he was actively ac-tively cutting up the handsome buck. The scout needed no instructions. He put down his rifle and began hunting chips for a fire. Bowie got his flint and tinder ready. "No, I don't feel like traveling today. to-day. Been traveling for three weeks now. Today I put away for eatin'. What say, Injun?" Pardaloe spoke after the first hour of a repast that promised to last -m m ends: the padre to keep his devoted servant from harm, Diego to keep his infirm master from tarTell me, Diego," said the padre, plated, "can you see anyone?" .. see a woman and a boy. They 3 ire figh'ing- She holds him and a beats him with a stick." a "it is Monica," said Diego in his l itaccato accents. "Now the boy gets loose. He is running. She chases He is running into the wheat t hide. Slower, Padre. Have care! great canyon and into the west. His instinct was not at fault. He beckoned beck-oned cautiously to his companions. When they joined him, he whispewed to Pardaloe to scatter the embers of the fire, come back and lie down. Peering together from this partial cover, the Texan could make out at a considerable distance below a straggling procession of men on ponies, po-nies, winding their way up the long canyon grade. Reaching a wide-open wide-open space after some further travel, trav-el, the procession broke and its horsemen made ready for a halt. For a long time the hidden men watched the scene with rapt attention, atten-tion, speaking in whispers. "Injuns," said Pardaloe at length. After a further pause Bowie turned to crawl back from the brink of the ledge, signaling to his men to follow. fol-low. Reaching a point where they could speak more freely, the talk Diego asked a question his first in the Indian tongue. Monica answered an-swered in Spanish. "It was that boy," she cried, "that Indian fiend, Yosco! Still my master would have escaped with his life but for him. When Don Alfredo and the two va-queros va-queros saw the Indians come they fled to the house for firearms. Yos- you will fall!" Protests were lost on the aged ',. M. With his hands outstretched I eager appeal as he stumbled on W" he sought to stay the angry Monica. She was already in the tall wheat, ,.,! furiously pursuing her escaping vic-'S'l vic-'S'l tim. The two were running down I the trail through the grain which must soon bring them into the pad-pt, pad-pt, ' te's arms when his shout reached itS(r the ears of both pursued and pur- cuer. ta' The Boy, seeing the advancing ta priest, halted, dumfounded. But only II lor an instant then, tearing into the a i! tall grain with the swiftness of a "! rabbit, he could only be followed ! with the eve as the swaying wheat co, accursed Doy, Darrea tne ironi door against them! They could not get into the house; they were slaughtered, slaugh-tered, all three, on the portico before be-fore the barred door barred by this young fiend. And this morning, back he came to steal the silver in the house. I caught him. It is he that I was beating, and now he has escaped." The three moved slowly on through the wheat toward the ranch house. CHAPTER III Too cold and too hungry to sleep, Bowie sat looking into his dying campfire, speculating on what still f began. Bowie spoke first. "Indians, sure enough." "And a bunch of 'em," added the scout. "What do you make of 'em, Simmie?" Sim-mie?" The question was addressed to the Creek. "I'd have to get closer to make things out. Looks to me like a raiding raid-ing party, maybe heading for their mountain hide-out." "What makes you think it's a raiding party?" asked Bowie. "Most of 'em don't know how to handle their ponies. Looks as if they've been run off, eh, Ben? And no squaws as far as I can see. Some of them are carrying loot," he added. add-ed. "You can see them unloading stuff. And there was some mix-up at the front when they halted." "All right, what we going to do?" asked Pardaloe, appealing to Bowie. , "Looks as if they're heading for us, doesn't it?" returned Bowie. "If they keep on up the canyon they're bound to run foul of us. If we turn back we've got a good ten miles of a climb to get away from them. We 1 never could do it they've got horses to" heads told of his flight. Monica dashed ahead. Even the sight of the padre .did not check her hysteria. "Diego!" she cried loudly to the padre's neophyte. "After IHU him! Do not let him go!" Diego stared but made no move. He looked at the rapid parting of the grain heads that marked the $1 hoy's race to escape; but most of fi all he stared at the strange Monica In front of him. Her scant gown -V; was in rags. Her features were .5 distorted with grief and rage. Her I .vi eyes, strained and tear stained, ; bulged in their sockets, and still she if, shouted at Diego in the Indian tongue as she pointed after the flee-,';.rj' flee-,';.rj' tag boy. "Woman!" exclaimed Padre Pas- might be ahead of him and his companions. com-panions. His thoughts reverted less willingly to what he had left behind: be-hind: the acute agony of thirst, the steady gnawing of hunger, the fiendish fiend-ish heat of the desert, the killing of the last pony for food. But at least the horror of this was behind him. The mountains could not be worse; they might be better. The sky was overcast and the night air, drifting silently down from the higher Sierras, chilled him to the bone. On the other side of the campfire embers, stretched asleep on the rocky ground, lay a lanky Missourian, the scout, Ben Pardaloe, Parda-loe, with his feet so close to tne fire that it seemed -as if they might blaze up any minute. His sleep was fitful, like that of a famished man. "Monica, what is the meaning of this?" all day. "I'll ask you one question, Henry," continued Pardaloe after getting no response from Simmie, and speaking now to Bowie. "Be we or been't we in Californy?" Bowie was disposing of a venison shank. "Ben," he said reassuringly, reassuring-ly, "we 'be.' Where did you think you 'be'?" Pardaloe, gnawing at what was left on the bone of his venison saddle, sad-dle, spoke at ease. "Well, up to about a hour ago I thought I was in helL But I guess this must be i Californy. Things seem to be com-in' com-in' our way since Simmie brought down this deer. Now, boys," he added precatorily, "hang on to every ev-ery scrap of this meat every scrap; might not sight another for a week. Mountains is big around here, they sure are. The highest is behind us. And I say, now while our stomachs is full, push on till we get down where there's plenty of game. We're started downhill but we're too high unlike his normal sleep with wmcn Bowie, after three weeks of hard camp life, had grown too familiar. Pardaloe, tall and gaunt, twisted and turned, drew up his legs and thrust them desperately out again From his open mouth there issued sighs and burbles. Even the familiar famil-iar snore was lacking; Ben was too weak to snore. The third man, Bob Simms, a half-breed Creek Indian, lay sleeping sleep-ing more quietly a little apart from the restless scout - not, perhaps, more inured to hunger and hardship hard-ship than his fellow adventurers but certainly more stoical m endur- ... I'll tell you, Simmie; get in close and make sure what they're doing." Simmie was gone a long time, so long that the white men began to wonder. Then they heard his careful footsteps. ' "Thought they'd caught you, Simmie," Sim-mie," said Bowie. "What did you find out?" "Not much more than I knew before. be-fore. It's a war party on their way home not a squaw anywhere around. Some of those ponies have Spanish saddles. They've raided a rancho." "Any sign of wounded?" Simmie shook his head. "If they had any wounded they must have died on the way up no sign of any now. They've been chased that's sure. Some of those ponies are !n bad shape they've been run to f quaL "Woman!" he repeated in .';' i sterner command, for she scarcely heeded him. "What are you do-tag? do-tag? Who are you?" jJ The half-crazed creature suddenly bbj looked at him. The stick dropped gr Irom her grasp. She clasped both hands to her haggard face and with ,n a dreadful cry threw herself pros-trate pros-trate on the ground at the padre's t Cl"1 feet. "Who who," gasped the sorely 101 bewildered priest, "are you?" "Padre," said the stolid Diego col- ,id Kr leetedly, "do you not know? It is Monica." "Impossible!" exclaimed the padre. pad-re. "Monica whom I have known I so many years whom I bap-9 bap-9 tized! Aid her, Diego. Rise, my Poor child. Rise! Speak!" "Monica!" he exclaimed as Diego helped the sobbing woman to her i uncertain feet. "Monica! What is ; toe meaning of this? What is the meaning of this? Where are your aIHunger and the piercing night air presently roused Bowie from a troubled trou-bled sleep. He started off to find kindling chips. hV,n, Later while he was stumbling along in the faint light of dawn feeling here and there as his feet L kedg into fragments of bark and master and mistress?" t; Monica, falling again to her trem- j blmg knees, lifted her face as she Mught at his right hand. "Woe is me. Padre! My master cruelly slain! Pil mistress shamed unto death. Carmelita, Terecita, stolen by the Jacked Indians. Only Alfredito left. ( ,,, to Los Alamos!" i it' ,tunned. the missioner and the ne- sl 0phi'te listened to the horrible re- it !"al of tne murders of the day be-' be-' i,. 'ore. rwre Pasqual listened to he end. nc stcoci infirmly, leaning again on 9" "is start with heart and mind lifted death." "Horses!" boomed Pardaloe, but cautiously. He licked his chops. "We've got to get a chance at them." He peered at Bowie. "What we going to do, Henry?" Bowie turned to Simmie. "How many of them are there?" "Near as I could count, fifty or fifty-five." "The question is, how to keep out of their way," said Bowie, reflecting. reflect-ing. "If they come up this way in the morning we'll have to mix with them whether we want to or not. Shall we turn back or try to dodge past 'em tonight?" "Injuns got good ears," observed ob-served Pardaloe grimly. "But no guns," retorted Bowie, still thinking. "I believe," he went on, "we can get around them tonight to-night without losing any hair. "They've got what looks to ms like a couple of prisoners," re- yet by near a mile, and going downhill down-hill a mile is a long way unless you fall down." Pardaloe stretched out on the ground. "If I had a pipe of tobacco I'd caU this a fair enough country. But there's too much snow on them high fellers nights are too blamed cold. Well, Henry" so the scout addressed ad-dressed Bowie "if you say go. it's go; but give me one more hour at i'g deer then I'll make a start Lazily, but with a more hopeful view of life, the little party of Tex-ans Tex-ans made their way down the western west-ern slope of the Sierras. The difference dif-ference between empty stomachs and full stomachs cheered them on their way, and the substantial remains re-mains of their feast they carried in sacks, crudely skewered from the buck's hide. It was a rough and forbidding terrain ter-rain they were following. "Ain't seen hide nor hair of a livin' critter all day " Ben rambled on as the sun sank in the west "Well, we chewed rotten branches raiien he became aware of an object distantly dis-tantly silhouetted against the eastern norizon. Noiselessly he .ank Bat to the ground to look and listen. He bought the thing "foTfZ Some moments passed before ne determine Luckily he had between him and the light Pence and the rapidly growing dawn re wa'rded his'vision. He was see the object more clearly, wor was he long in identifying with it a of anflers. Caution was nee-P nee-P ,1 The adventurers were essary. The tased starved men They na heaven, poured out his grief in jT Payer to his Maker. The awesome spectacle of the ven- able man, heart-broken but silent, Petition before his God steadied asy rrriS last'" she said, gasping with 7lln. "the soldiers came. Alfreds' Alfre-ds' brought them. The house is 210 wned; the quarters and the gran-ry gran-ry are burned. They rode away W5! PUrsue the savages; Alfredito (ff ''.j bde with them. Oh, Padre, he is so ibr. L,ave' the poor boy. He worshiped ,, .ith a cautioning Hist. marked Simmie casually. "Prisoners?" echoed Bowie. "Why didn't you say so before?" "I might be all wrong." continued the impassive Creek. "I wanted to get closer to make sure, but I thought I was down there too long." Eowie acted as if an electric shock had galvanized him. "Hell!" he snapped testily. 'That's a horse of another color. I've heard these California Cal-ifornia Indians are close to cannibals. canni-bals. They may have camped to make a meal rf their prisoners. We've got to lock into this corr. along." (TO BE C0T1M F.D) dry leather three days aner e uu-ished uu-ished your pony, Henry." he said to Bowie. "Guess fresh deer h;de will keep us goin'. Why ain't this a good place to camp for the night, right here? What say. Henry? Here's water wa-ter handy." Bowie was willing to camp, and the peaceful Simmie never interposed inter-posed objection on a minor point. The spot they' had reached was close to the brink of a long ledge that broke away below them into an open fiat A mountain brook gurgled gur-gled hard by. They built a fire, laved, drank, and opened their re- fS'j 1 tth mothQr a"d his little sisters. X?;l T"at-what will become of them? int $oldiers followed the trail far 0 'he hills, but in the mountains e Indians fought and wounded so r.'iV tLany s'diers with their arrows, J bu SCldiers had to come back. They ihH1Cd 015 poor vaqueros on the hill 0 carried the body of Don Alfredo cdnofur-l thnir feet together, mcy WerueduP h r cold rifles. "Which sorted Pardaloe. peering abT0 the east in the chaparral, |