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Hales, Mateo, and young John Taylor rode hard. Mateo, like all native Californians, men or women, sat a horse as if he had grown to the saddle. Most Californians did get a large part of their growth out of the saddle, which they used nearly as much as they used a bed.
As Mateo rode he chattered with a kind of gossipy merriment to Hales, for Mateo knew all about all the old Spanish families in that part of the country. El Crucifijo, he said, did not belong to the man Cowden; it belonged to Gaspar de Coronal, whose daughter Señor Cowden had married. Señor Cowden had bought some land near the rancho which he used as his own because of the marriage; but El Crucifijo belonged to—and so, on and on, with the rattling repetition of a woman. Mateo thought it a thing to be laughed at merrily if this colonel had bought Señor Cowden's few acres in the belief that he was getting historic El Crucifijo.
The night was overhung with half a moon, dotted with all the stars, the landscape covered with soft light and heavy shadows.
As they pounded into the curve of road that circled embracingly before the ranch house of El Crucifijo, a broad-chested figure emerged into the moonlight, and as they pulled down, his deep low-spoken voice, with every appearance of anxious warning, cried in Spanish:
"On, on, señors! Ride for your lives! The blasted gringos lie near here and wait!"
"We fly from no man, señor!" said Mateo. "We bring news!"
"Eh?" said Ferdinand, with shake of head, clutching at the bridle of Taylor's horse, peering up into his face. "You are yourself an American?"—this in English. Ferdinand had wasted his good lie with which he had meant to keep unwelcome friends, who might want to pause and rest, on their way.
"Where is Miss Tesla?" Hales demanded.
"Who are you, señor? An' why is it you ask for her?"
"Mr. Tesla has been shot and is dying."
"Eh, señor!" Ferdinand peered up searchingly. "E-ah! I beleeve you, señor, but say to me it is not so! In God's name, lie to me, señor! He dies?"
"He is dying and wants his daughter. This man"—Hales gestured at Mateo—"showed the way. This boy"—"he indicated Taylor—"is a friend she knows. There is no time to lose."
"An' who, who, señor?" asked Ferdinand with a kind of stealthy menace in his voice. "Who keeled the father of my people's daughter?"
"It is not known. We lose time. Go tell her."
"There is always time for sorrow, señor, lose what you may of it. An' you say it is not known—how not known?"
"He was shot from the dark. Awaken Miss Tesla, say"
"Not known? From the dark?" Ferdinand repeated blankly, as if such things could not be. "Then our good God makes me the knife blade!" With rising savagery: "Ferdinand will know—e-ah! though he mus' deeg into hell an' read names of all who have keeled good men! E-ah!I will swear it—an' death upon heem!"
He raised his two hands and faced toward the moon; without lowering his eyes and speaking a most strange gibberish, he drew his knife, holding it aloft. All the superstition and criss-cross lore of his youth had, with the coming of Kredra, swept back upon him; and now with sudden passion he took the sacred oath of Steel and Moon that binds a man, irrevocably.
Mateo, seeing, hearing, understanding nothing except such as was responsive in his own superstitious blood, reined back his horse, putting more distance between himself and this strange man who took a knife-oath. John Taylor, understanding even less than Mateo, felt a troop of chills running up and down his back. And for the moment even Hales, though impatient as a man must be who has ridden hard with a message, kept silent, listened in puzzlement, wondering what tongue this man who seemed a Spaniard spoke.
Ferdinand, with lighted candle in hand, pushed aside the tanned bullock hide that hung before the doorway of a room and said softly:
"Kredra? Kredra the Wise, do you sleep?"
"I do not sleep," she answered wearily.
He entered, cupping the flame with his hand against the air current of the moving hide, and coming to the bed where she lay motionless, her deep black eyes without fear, without curiosity, gazing fixedly at him, he said quietly:
"Within the time that a leaf falls from twig to earth, I have taken the Oath!"
"What oath?"
"Of Knife and Moon. A man dies!"
"Who?" said Kredra, rising quickly to her elbow.
"I do not know. But a man has come"
"I heard the hoofbeats."
"—no lies are written on his face. He says the father of our little one dies. She must go!"
Kredra sat upright, glowering darkly.
"Who?"
"He killed from the dark. But he dies. I have sworn!"