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And standing alone and defenseless on the little table of stone, as if for sacrifice, the tall, stalwart young plainsman and the beautiful girl with her golden hair in waving masses about her uncovered head, her sweet face white as the face of the dying nun beside the sandy arroyo below us, her big dark eyes full of a strange fire. "I order you to close in and take these two at once."
Every arroyo is dry, the very cactus seems shriveled and the deep blue of the sky gives no promise of any relief. Then, in the night, thunder-clouds roll up from the painted hills, a tropical deluge resembling a cloud-burst falls, and in the morning lo! where was yellow sand parched from months of drought, is now sprouting green grass!
We marched several miles through a winding hollow, passing a deserted rancho, and ascending with much labour a steep ridge of hills, descending which we entered a handsome valley, and encamped upon a small stream about four miles from the mission of St. Ynes. The banks of the arroyo are strewn with dead and prostrate timber, the trees, large and small, having been overthrown by tornados.
She puts them in baskets on the roof in the sun and lets them cry it out, in that hard-hearted modern method applied to babies. A sight-seeing car had paused while the gentleman with the megaphone explained to a few late tourists the Arroyo Seco, that great river-bed with only a trickle of water at the bottom, on whose brink our house perches.
Through their foliage she had glimpsed the Engle home. She expected to find running water under their shade, that and an attendant coolness. But the arroyo proved to be dry and hot, a gash in the dry bosom of the earth, its bottom strewn with smooth pebbles and sand and a very sparse, unattractive vegetation, stunted and harsh.
"I have been taking a canter to the eastward. Kamaiakan said this morning that one of the boys had brought news of a cloud-burst in that direction. I rode far enough to ascertain that there has really been something of the kind, and I think it has affected the arroyo on the farther side of the little sierra.
"Let me present Captain Lee Gordon of the Arroyo," remarked Santos, coming to a stockily-built, sun-burned man with the unmistakable look of the Anglo-Saxon who has spent much time in the neighborhood of the tropical sun. "The Arroyo is the ship that is to carry the arms and the plant to the island from Brooklyn.
"Dyke," called the sheriff again, "for the last time, I summon you to surrender." Dyke did not reply. The sheriff, Delaney, and the man named Christian conferred together in a low voice. Then Delaney and Christian left the others, making a wide detour up the sides of the arroyo, to gain a position to the left and somewhat to the rear of Dyke. But it was at this moment that S. Behrman arrived.
"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil. Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been about eight." "Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a whisper. "What man?" Jim asked. "We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil exclaimed.
Another fifteen minutes of shod hoofs pounding through the broken hills and he saw the first spurts of flame cutting through the shadows where the trees clung to the arroyo. As he drew in his horse the men behind him closed up about him. He threw out his arm, pointing. "Brocky's boys must be right down there," he said sharply. "The Kid and del Rio will be yonder; those are their horses.
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