He fumed nervously over the unexpected thrust of Austrian ancestry, and the beautiful eyes of Doña Jocasta regarded him with awakened interest. She had never thought of his politics, or possible affiliations, but after all it was true that he had been stationed at a pueblo where everything on wheels must pass coming north towards the border, also that was a very small pueblo to support a padre, and perhaps----
"Padre," she said after a moment, "but for the Americano you would be a dead man. Think you what Ramon would have done to a priest who let a vaquero carry me to the ranges! Also I came back to Soledad because the Americano told me it was only duty and justice that I come for your sake as Ramon has no liking for priests. You see, señor, our American capitan of Soledad is not so bad;--he had a care of you."
"Too much a care of me!" retorted the priest. "Know you not that the door of my sleeping room is bolted each night, and unbolted at dawn? He laughs with a light heart, and sings foolishly,--your new Americano; but under that cloak of the simple his plotting is not idle!"
"As to that, I think his light heart is not so light these days," said Doña Jocasta. "Two days now the Indian girl and Marto Cavayso could have been back in Soledad, and he is looking, looking ever over that empty trail. Before the sun was above the sierra today he was far there coming across the mesa."
"A man does not go in the dark to look for a trail," said Padre Andreas meaningly. "He unbolted my door on his return, and to me he looked as a man who has done work that was heavy. What work is there for him to do alone in the hills?"
"Who knows? A horse herd is somewhere in a cañon beyond. There are colts, and the storm of yesterday might make trouble. The old father of Elena says that storm has not gone far and will come back! And while the Americano rides to learn of colts, and strays, he also picks the best mules for our journey to the border."
"Does he find the best mules with packs already on their backs in the cañons?" demanded the padre skeptically. "From my window I saw them return."
"I also," confessed Doña Jocasta amused at the persistence of suspicion, "and the load was the water bags and _serape_! Does any but a fool go into the wilderness without water?"