between them and him.  Theron and Mary were the parents of Eloise St. Vrain.  It is no wonder that she is beautiful.  She had Mary Marchland for a mother.  Theron St. Vrain died early, and the management of his property fell into Fred Ramer’s hands.  At Mary’s death it would descend to Eloise, with the proviso I just mentioned of an unworthy marriage.  In that case, Ramer, at his own discretion, could give the estate to the Church.  Nobody knows when Mary Marchland died, nor where she is buried, except Fred and his confessor, Father Josef.”

“How far can a man’s hate run, Jondo?” I asked.

“Oh, not so far as a man’s love.  Listen, Gail.”  Never a man had a truer eye and a sweeter smile than my big Jondo.

“Fred Ramer was desperately in need of money when he was plotting to darken the life of Mary Marchland—­that was just before the birth of Eloise—­and through her sorrow to break the heart of the man whom she loved—­I said we college boys were all in love with her, you remember.  Let me make it short now.  One night Fred’s father was murdered, by whom was never exactly proven.  But he was last seen alive with his ward, Theron St. Wain, who, with his foster-brother, Bertrand, thoroughly despised him for his plain robbery of their heritage.

“The case was strong against Theron, for the evidence was very damaging, and it would have gone hard with him but for the foster-brother.  Bertrand St. Wain took the guilt upon himself by disappearing suddenly.  He was supposed to have drowned himself in the lower Mississippi, for his body, recognized only by some clothing, was recovered later in a drift and decently buried.  So he was effaced from the records of man.”

In the dim light Jondo’s blue eyes were like dull steel and his face was a face of stone, but he continued: 

“Just here Clarenden comes into the story.  He learned it through Felix Narveo, and Felix got it from the Mexicans themselves, that Fred Ramer had plotted with them to put his father out of the way—­I said he was desperately in need of money—­and to lay the crime on Theron St. Vrain, by whose disgrace the life of Mary Marchland would be blighted, and Fred would have his revenge and his father’s money.  Narveo was afraid to act against Ramer, but nothing ever scared Esmond Clarenden away from what he wanted to do.  Through his friendship for St. Vrain, to whom some suspicion still clung, and that lost foster-brother, Bertrand, he turned the screws on Fred Ramer that drove him out of the country.  He landed, finally, at Santa Fe, and became Ferdinand Ramero.  He managed by his charming manners to enchant the sister of Felix Narveo—­and you know the rest.”

Jondo paused.

“Didn’t Felix Narveo go to Fort Leavenworth once, just before Uncle Esmond brought us with him to Santa Fe?” I asked.

“Yes, he went to warn Clarenden not to leave you there unprotected, for a band of Ramero’s henchmen were on their way then to the Missouri River—­we passed them at Council Grove—­to kidnap you three and take you to old Mexico,” Jondo said.  “An example of Fred’s efforts to get even with Clarenden and of the loyalty of Narveo to his old college chum.  The same gang of Mexicans had kidnapped Little Blue Flower and given her to the Kiowas.”