Chapter 31 - Page 2

it?"

"Perhaps. And yet--It seems ages since I learned--what happened to Ed, but in reality it's only a few hours. Won't people talk?"

Dave caught at the suggestion. "I see. Then let's keep it secret for the present. I promise not to--act like a husband."

With a little reckless laugh she confessed, "I--I'm afraid I'll find it difficult to be conventional."

"My wife!" he cried in sharp agony. Leaning far out, he encircled her with his arm; then, half lifting her from her saddle, he crushed his lips to hers. It was his first display of emotion since Father O'Malley had united them.

There were few villages along the road they followed, and because of the lateness of the hour all were dark, hence the party passed through without exciting attention except from an occasional wakeful dog. But as morning came and the east began to glow Dave told the priest:

"We've got to hide out during the day or we'll get into trouble. Besides, these women must be getting hungry."

"I fear there is something feminine about me," confessed the little man. "I'm famished, too."

At the next rancho they came to they applied for shelter, but were denied; in fact, the owner cursed them so roundly for being Americans that they were glad to ride onward. A mile or two farther along they met a cart the driver of which refused to answer their greetings. As they passed out of his sight they saw that he had halted his lean oxen and was staring after them curiously. Later, when the sun was well up and the world had fully awakened, they descried a mounted man, evidently a cowboy, riding through the chaparral. He saw them, too, and came toward the road, but after a brief scrutiny he whirled his horse and galloped off through the cactus, shouting something over his shoulder.

"This won't do," O'Malley declared, uneasily. "I don't like the actions of these people. Let me appeal to the next person we meet. I can't believe they all hate us."

Soon they came to a rise in the road, and from the crest of this elevation beheld ahead of them a small village of white houses shining from the shelter of a grove. The rancheria was perhaps two miles away, and galloping toward it was the vaquero who had challenged them.

"That's the Rio Negro crossing," Dave announced. Then spying a little house squatting a short distance back from the road, he said: "We'd better try yonder. If they turn us down we'll have to take to the brush."

O'Malley agreed. "Yes, and we have no time to lose. That horseman is going to rouse the town. I'm afraid we're--in for it."

Dave nodded silently.

Leaving the beaten path, the refugees threaded their way through cactus and sage to a gate, entering which they approached the straw-thatched jacal they had seen. A