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"Father Josef must have waited a long time up at the church door for his messenger to come back and bring him word from me." Beverly frankly told him the truth, as from childhood we had learned was the easiest way out of trouble. Jondo's smile came back to his eyes, but his lips did not smile as he said: "Gail, you can explain things to Bev.
"Slip over to Jondo and tell him there are Mexicans in town, and I'm going across the river to see what's up. Tell him to wake up everybody and have them stay in the wagons till I get back." He slid away and the shadows ate him. I followed as far as Jondo's wagon, and gave my message. As I came back something seemed to slip away before me and disappear somewhere.
Big, broad-shouldered, muscular, yet agile, a head set like a Greek statue, and a face nobody could ever make a picture of Jondo's face for me the curling brown hair, soft as a girl's, the broad forehead, deep-set blue eyes, heavy dark brow, cheeks always ruddy through the plain's tan, strong white teeth, firm square chin, and a smile like sunshine on the gray prairies.
But in that flash all of Jondo's cause for anxiety was justified. The widening draw was full of Kiowas, hideous in war-paint, and the ridges on either side of us were swarming with Indians beating dried skins to frighten and stampede our stock, and all yelling like fiends, while a perfect rain of arrows swept our camp.
"Set but a foot outside these walls and you will reckon with me." It was Jondo's clear voice, and the big plainsman, towering up suddenly behind Ferdinand Ramero, filled the doorway. "You meant to hide in the old Church of San Miguel because it is so near to the home where you have kept this little girl.
Santan, Beverly's "Satan," whom our captain had defended, flashed to my mind, but I knew by Jondo's face that he did not believe the old trapper's story. "Them Kioways is still layin' fur you ever' year, I tell you, an' they're bound to git you sooner or later. I'm tellin' ye in kindness." The old man's voice weakened a little. "And I'm taking you in kindness," Jondo said.
But forget not to love even your enemies." In the midnight dimness Jondo's bright smile glowed with all its courageous sweetness. "I finished that fight long ago," he said. "I come only to help others." Long these two, priest and plainsman, stood there with clasped hands, the gray night mists of the Santa Fé Valley round about them and all the far stars of the midnight sky gleaming above them.
And looking back to-day it seems that, of the many times I walked the long miles of that old Santa Fe Trail, no journey over it stands out quite so clear-cut in my memory as the home trip after I had watched the going away of Eloise, and witnessed the flight of Ferdinand Ramero, and listened to the story of Jondo's life.
Covert sneers pointed many comments, and grim silence threatened more than everything else. Jondo's face was set, but there was a calmness about his words and actions, and even the most rebellious that night knew he was least afraid of any man among us. At midnight he wakened me. "I want you to help me, Gail," he said. "The Kiowas will gather for us at Pawnee Rock.
But Jondo had not slept, and his face was sterner than ever as the duties of the day began. Before sunrise I began to be missed. "Where's Gail?" Bill Banney was the first to ask. "That's Clarenden's job, not mine," another of the bull-whackers resented a command of Jondo's. "Gail! Gail! Anybody on earth seen Gail Clarenden this morning?" came from a far corner of the camp.
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