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Updated: June 1, 2025
"I thought mebby you'd gone back after Jondo and that holy podder," Rex Krane greeted me. "Better begin to wink naturally and look a little pleasanter now. We'll be in the Plazzer in two or three minutes."
The trail life had hardened us all, but the finishing touch for Rex Krane came in the invigorating breath of that mountain-cooled, sun-cleansed atmosphere of Santa Fé. Shrewd, philosophic, brave-hearted like his historic ancestry, he laid his plans carefully now, sure of doing what he was set to do.
Ten minutes later another horseman left the street beside the hotel and crossed the Plaza, riding erect and open-faced as only Jondo could ride. Then the African woman sought out Rex Krane, and in a few brief sentences told him what had been taking place. All of which Rex was far too wise to repeat to Beverly and me.
That afternoon it happened that we left Mat Nivers at the hotel, while Rex Krane and Beverly and I strolled out of town on a well-beaten trail leading toward the west. "It looks interestin'. Let's go on a ways," Rex commented, lazily.
So we stood looking out toward that northwest plain where the trail lost itself among the low adobe huts huddled together beside the glistening waters of the Santa Fé River. Rex Krane was the first to speak. "So that's what we've come out for to see, is it?" he mused, aloud.
I saw Rex Krane at the head, and Jondo at the foot, and Beverly's bleeding hands as he scraped the loose earth back and heaped it over that which had been called Sister Anita; I heard Father Josef's voice of music repeating the "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust." And then we turned away and left the spot, as men turn every day to the common affairs of life.
"We shall come to the parting of the ways to night if we make good time, Krane," Esmond Clarenden said to the young Bostonian, as we rested at noon beside the trait. "To-night we camp at Council Grove and from there on there is no turning back. I had hoped to find a big crowd waiting to start off from that place. But everybody we have met coming in says that there are no freighters going west now.
We knew that Jondo's wound was mortal, and Father Josef and Eloise and Rex Krane sat beside him, as the brave eyes looked out across the sublimity of earthly beauty toward the far land no eye hath seen, facing, unafraid, the outward-leading trail. But Beverly was in the prime of young manhood, and we felt sure of him, as Esmond Clarenden and Sister Gloria; and I ministered to his wants.
The soft exclamation had a breath of bravery in it that stirred all of us. "You are right, Daniel. Lead out. Keep to the shadows. If you must run make your mules do record time," Uncle Esmond said. "You'll find me there when you stop," Rex Krane declared. No sick man ever took life less seriously. "I'm goin' ahead to John-the-Baptist this procession and air the parlor bedrooms."
And the wholesome sense of really serving the man who had measured his worth at a glance gave him a pleasure he had not known before. Of course, he moved slowly and indifferently. One could never imagine Rex Krane hurrying about anything. "We'll just 'prospect, as Daniel Boone says," he declared, as he marshaled us for the day.
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