In the dim morning light of our fifth day in Santa Fe, a man on horseback, carrying a big, bulky bundle in his arms, slipped out of the crooked, shadow-filled street beside the old church of San Miguel.  He halted a moment before the structure and looked up at the ancient crude spire outlined against the sky, then sped down the narrow way by the hotel at the end of the trail.  He crossed the Plaza swiftly and dashed out beyond the Palace of the Governors and turned toward the west.

Aunty Boone, who slept in the family wagon—­or under it—­in the inclosure at the rear of the hotel, had risen in time to peer out of the wooden gate just as the rider was passing.  It was still too dark to see the man’s face distinctly, but his form, and the burden he carried, and the trappings of the horse she noted carefully, as was her habit.

“Up to cussedness, that man is.  Mighty long an’ slim.  Lemme see!  Humph!  I know him.  I’ll go wake up somebody.”

As the woman leaned far out of the gate she caught sight of a little Indian girl crouching outside of the wall.

“You got no business here, you, Little Blue Flower!  Where do you live when you do live?”

Little Blue Flower pointed toward the west.

“Why you come hangin’ ’round here?” the African woman demanded.

“Father Josef send me to help the people who help me,” she said, in her soft, low voice.

“Go back to your own folks, then, and tell your Daddy Joseph a man just stole a big bunch of something and rode south with it.  He can look after that man.  We can get along somehow.  Now go.”

The voice was like a growl, and the little Indian maiden shrank back in the shadow of the wall.  The next minute Aunty Boone was rapping softly on the door of the room whose guest had registered as Jean Deau.  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.

Nobody would have guessed from his manner but that he was indulgently helping us to have a good time with certain restriction as to where we should go, and what we might say, nor that, of the three, he was the most alert and full of definite purpose.

We sat down beside the way as a line of burros loaded with firewood from the mountains trailed slowly by, with their stolid-looking drivers staring at us in silent unfriendliness.

The last driver was the tall young Indian boy whom I had seen standing in front of Little Blue Flower in the crowd of the Plaza.  He paid no heed to our presence, and his face was expressionless as he passed us.