“And Tomaso will surely bring my mother from that cave, senor?  I am afraid—­I feel sure he was glad to shut her in there.”

“I will leave a note for the Governor.  Your mother will be free within three days, and meanwhile a little solitary meditation will do her good.”

When night came Sturges lifted Pilar from her horse to his, and pressed her head against his shoulder.  “Sleep,” he said.  “You are worn out.”

She flung her hand over his shoulder, made herself comfortable, and was asleep in a moment, oblivious of the dark forest and the echoing cries of wild beasts.  The strong arm of Sturges would have inspired confidence even had it done less in her rescue.  Once only she shook and cried out, but with rage, not fear, in her tones.  Her words were coherent enough:—­

“His head!  His head!  Ay, Dios, what I have suffered!”

An hour before dawn Benito left them, mounted on the rested mustang and leading his own.  The others pushed on, over and around the foothills, with what speed they could; for even here the trail was narrow, the pine woods dense.  It was just after dawn that Sturges saw Tomaso rein in his mustang and peer into the shrubbery beside the trail.  When he reached the spot himself, he saw signs of a struggle.  The brush was trampled for some distance into the thicket, and several of the young trees were wrenched almost from their roots.

“It has been a struggle between a man and a wild beast, senor,” whispered Tomaso, for Filar still slept.  “Shall I go in?  The man may breathe yet.”

“Go, by all means.”

Tomaso dismounted and entered the thicket.  He came running back with blinking eyes.

“Madre de Dios!” he exclaimed in a loud whisper.  “It is the young priest—­Padre Dominguez.  It must have been a panther, for they spring at the breast, and his very heart is torn out, senor.  Ay, yi!”

“Ah!  You must inform the Church as soon as we have gone.  Go on.”

They had proceeded a few moments in silence, when Sturges suddenly reined in his mustang.

“Tomaso,” he whispered, “come here.”

The vaquero joined him at once.

“Tomaso,” said Sturges, “have you any objection to cutting off a dead man’s head?”

“No, senor.”

“Then go back and cut off that priest’s and wrap it in a piece of his cassock, and carry it the best way you can.”

Tomaso disappeared, and Sturges pushed back the gray hood and looked upon the pure noble face of the girl he had chosen for wife.

“I believe in gratifying a woman’s whims whenever it is practicable,” he thought.

But she made him a very good wife.

LA PERDIDA

On her fourteenth birthday they had married her to an old man, and at sixteen she had met and loved a fire-hearted young vaquero.  The old husband had twisted his skinny fingers around her arm and dragged her before the Alcalde, who had ordered her beautiful black braids cut close to her neck, and sentenced her to sweep the streets.  Carlos, the tempter of that childish unhappy heart, was flung into prison.  Such were law and justice in California before the Americans came.