"You take Elena a present from me to encourage that help," suggested Kit, and he poured a little of the gold from his belt on the paper. "Also there is the same for you when the lady comes safe. It is best that you make willing offer of your service in all ways so that he calls on none of his own men for help."
"As you say, señor," assented Clodomiro, "and that will march well with his desires, for to keep the others from knowing is the principal thing. She has beauty like a lily in the shade."
"He tells you that?" asked Kit quizzically, but the boy shook his head.
"My own eyes looked on her. She is truly of the beauty of the holy pictures of the saints in the chapel, but Marto says she is a witch, and has him enchanted;--also that evil is very strong in her. I do not know."
"Well, cross your fingers and tackle the job," suggested Kit. "Get what sleep you can, for you may not get much tomorrow night. It is the work of a brave man you are going to do, and your pay will be a man's pay."
The eyes of the Indian boy glowed with pleasure.
"At your service, señor. I will do this thing or I will not see Mesa Blanca again."
Kit looked after Clodomiro and rolled another cigarette before turning in to sleep.
"When all's said and done, I may be the chief goat of this dame adventure," he told himself in derision. "Maybe my own fingers need crossing."
At the first break of dawn, Rhodes was up, and without waiting for breakfast walked over to the rancherias of Palomitas to see Tula.
She was with some little girls and old women carrying water from the well as stolidly as though adventure had never stalked across her path. A whole garment had been given her instead of the tatter of rags in which she had returned to the little Indian pueblo. She replied briefly to his queries regarding her welfare, and when he asked where she was living, she accompanied him to an old adobe where there were two other motherless children--victims of the raiders.
An old, half-blind woman stirred meal into a kettle of porridge, and to her Kit addressed himself.
"A blessing will be on your house, but you have too many to feed here," he said "and the child of Miguel should go to the ranch house of Mesa Blanca. The wife of Isidro is a good woman and will give her care."