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Updated: June 6, 2025
The Indian runner's face did not change its blankness, but I felt that he doubted Jondo's judgment. That night he slipped away and we never saw him again. We were all hopeful that night, and hopeful the next morning when we broke camp early. A trail we had not seen the night before ran up the low ridge to the west of us. Eloise and I followed it up a little way, riding abreast.
It's awful!" No? No? No? "Bathing in the river? Where? Over there across the sand-bar?" Nowhere! Nowhere! "By the eternal God, they've got him!" Jondo's agonized voice rang through the camp. "We can take care of the wounded, and those fellows lying over there don't need us. But, oh, Gail! They'll torture him to death!" Rex Krane's voice choked and he ground his teeth. "Gail, my Gail!"
"I may be, but I'm no coward," Beverly retorted. "Oh, here comes Jondo. I've got a letter from Father Josef. Invitation to some churchly dinner, I expect." Beverly threw the letter into Jondo's hands and turned to leave us. "Wait a minute!" Jondo commanded, and my cousin halted in surprise. "When did you get this? I should have had it two hours ago," Jondo said, sternly.
I would not cry out, but I could not hold back the sobs as I tried to stand, and fell again in a heap at Jondo's feet. "Things were stirrin'" there, as Aunty Boone had said, but withal there was no disorder. Esmond Clarenden never did business in that way. No loose ends flapped about his rigging, and when a piece of work was finished with him, there was nothing left to clear away.
The night guard was doubled and every precaution for the stock was demanded, giving added cause for grumbling and muttered threats which no man had the courage to speak openly to Jondo's face. I knew why he had said that he would need me. Bill Banney was always reliable, but growing more silent and unapproachable every day.
I hope there's only one of it." We had hardly moved after the first alarm, except to peer about and fancy that dark objects were closing in upon us. It did come to life again. This time on Jondo's side of the camp. Something creeping near, and nearer.
Behind him always was his Cheyenne mother, jealously defending him in everything, and in manifold ways making life a burden if we would submit to the making, which we seldom did. And lastly Santan, the young boy who had deserted his Mexican masters for Jondo's command, contrived, with an Indian's shrewdness, never to let us out of his sight. But he gave us no opportunity to approach him.
Over and over, Jondo's words, when he had told me the story of Mary Marchland, came back to me: "And although they loved each other always, they never saw each other again." Nobody, outside of those touched by it, knew Jondo's story, except myself. He was Theron St. Vrain's brother, yet Eloise never called him uncle, and, except for the one mention of her father's grave, she did not speak of him.
Jondo had told me they could do it. Poor Bill, moaning for water now and tossing in agony in Jondo's wagon! The Comanches had been cunning in their malice. How we hated them as we stood looking at the waters of that poisoned spring! Rex Krane's big, gentle hands were holding Bill's. Rex always had a mother's heart; while Jondo read the ground with searching glance.
Whoo-ee!" Aunty Boone slowly settled down beside the cypress, with her face toward her beloved "desset," and when we went to her a little later, her eyes, still looking eastward, saw nothing earthly any more forever. Jondo's face seemed glorified as he caught Aunty Boone's last words, and his voice was sweet and clear as he looked up at Eloise bending over him. "Thank God!
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