So also it happened that Rex had strolled down from Fort Marcy the night before, in time to see Beverly and the girl in the Mexican dress loitering along the brown front of La Garita.  And his keen eyes had caught sight of Santan crouching in an angle of the wall, watching them.

“Indians and Mexes don’t mix a lot.  And Bev oughtn’t mix with either one,” Rex commented.  “I’ll line the boy up for review to-morrow, so Mat won’t say I’ve neglected him.”

But the Yankee took the precaution to follow the trail to the Indian’s possible abiding-place on the outskirts of Santa Fe.  And it was Rex who most aided Jondo in finding that the Indian had gone with Ramero’s men northward.

“That fellow is Santan, of Fort Bent, Rex,” Jondo said.

“Yes, you thought he was Santa and I took him for Satan then.  We missed out on which to knock out of him.  Bev won’t care nothin’ about his name.  He will knock hell out of him if he gets in that Clarenden boy’s way,” Rex had replied.

At the chapel door now the Yankee turned away and rode down the trail toward the little angle where an Indian arrow had whizzed at our party an hour before.

In the shadow of a fallen mass of rock below the cliff Little Blue Flower had spread her blanket, with Beverly’s coat tucked under it in a roll for a pillow, and now she sat beside the dying nun, holding the crucifix to Sister Anita’s lips.  The Indian girl’s hands were blood-stained and the nun’s black veil and gown were disheveled, and her white head-dress and coif were soaked with gore.  But her white face was full of peace as the light faded from her eyes.

And Beverly!  The boy forgot the rest of the world when one of the Apache’s arrows struck down the pony and the other pierced Sister Anita’s neck.  Tenderly as a mother would lift a babe he quickly carried the stricken woman to the shelter of the rock, and with one glance at her he turned away.

“You can do all that she needs done for her.  Give her her cross to hold,” he said, gently, to Little Blue Flower.

Then he sprang up and dashed across the river, splashing the bright waters as he leaped to the farther side where Santan stood concealed, waiting for the return of Ramero’s Mexicans.

At the sound of Beverly’s feet he leaped to the open just in time to meet Beverly’s fist square between the eyes.

“Take that, you dirty dog, to shoot down an innocent nun.  And that!” Beverly followed his first blow with another.

The Apache, who had reeled back with the weight of the boy’s iron fist, was too quick for the second thrust, struggling to get hold of his arrows and his scalping-knife.  But the space was too narrow and Beverly was upon him with a shout.

“I told you I’d make a sieve or you the next time you tried to see me, and I’m going to do it.”

He seized the Indian’s knife and flung it clear into the river, where it stuck upright in the sands of the bed, parting the little stream of water gurgling against it; and with a powerful grip on the Apache’s shoulders he wrenched the arrows from their place and tramped on them with his heavy boot.