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Updated: May 14, 2025
Keep right behind me." The little group moved carefully down the cañon trail. In a short time they reached a growth of trees. They stole through these, the only sound Rhoda's panting breaths. Suddenly Kut-le stopped. "Wait here!" he breathed in Rhoda's ear, and he and Alchise disappeared. A hand was laid on her arm and Rhoda knew that Molly and Cesca were guarding her.
"Jack, I'll never forget that speech. If I live long enough, I'll repay you for it." "And an Indian keeps his promises," said Rhoda softly. Billy Porter was not to be outdone. "Now that it's all over with, I'll say that Kut-le is a good fighter and that you are the handsomest couple I ever saw." Kut-le chuckled. "Cesca, am I such a heap fool?" Cesca sniffed. "White squaws no good! They "
Rhoda could see the individual leaves of the aspens on the opposite wall as they moved close in the shadow of the other. The floor, watered by a clear brook, was level and green. On either side the walls were murmurous with delicately quivering aspens and sighing pines. Suddenly Cesca gave a grunt of warning. Far down the valley a sheep-herder was approaching with his flocks.
She turned to Molly. "Do you think it's so bad, Molly?" That faithful friend grunted with rage and aimed a vicious kick at Cesca. Then she put a protecting arm about Rhoda. "It's heap fine! Cesca just old fool. You love Molly. Let Cesca go to hell!" Kut-le had been watching the little scene with tender eyes.
Rhoda turned away with a sigh at the note of finality in Molly's voice. Kut-le was climbing the trail toward the camp with a little pile of provisions. So far he had not failed to procure when needed some sort of rations bacon, flour and coffee though since her abduction Rhoda had seen no human habitation, Cesca was preparing supper.
And with Cesca and Molly bringing up the rear, the wedding party followed the padre down a long adobe hallway across a courtyard where palms still shaded a trickling fountain, into a dim chapel, with grim adobe walls and pews hacked and worn by centuries of use. The padre was excited and pleased. "If," he said, "you all will sit, I will call my two choir-boys who are at work in the olive orchard.
Finally Molly squat, dirty Molly the stupid, squalid aborigine, as distinct from Cesca's type as is the brown snail from the stinging wasp. Alchise, striding after his chief, was smitten with a sudden idea. After ruminating on it for some time, he communicated it to his squaw. Cesca shook her head with a grunt of disapproval. Alchise insisted and the squaw looked at Kut-le cunningly.
Alchise and Cesca sat on the floor, and little by little they were joined by a dozen other Indians who formed a circle about the girl. The firelight flickered on the dark, intent faces and on Rhoda's delicate beauty as she lay passing rapidly from stupor to delirium. Suddenly the old man raised his lean hand, shaking a gourd filled with pebbles, and began softly to chant.
For a moment Kut-le stared at Alchise; then, as if realizing the futility of speech, "Come!" he said, and ignoring the other Indians, he strode from the campos. Alchise and Cesca followed him, and outside the anxious Molly seized Rhoda's limp hand with a little cry of joy. Kut-le led the way to a quiet spot among the pines.
Perhaps, somewhere or other, he was lying badly hurt! The little group sat up much later than usual, Cesca silently smoking her endless cigarettes, Alchise and Molly talking now in Apache, now in English. Rhoda was convinced that they were puzzled and worried. Even after she had lain down on her blankets Rhoda could not sleep. With Kut-le gone her sense of the camp's security was gone.
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