Our Conestoga wagons, with their mule-teams, and the few ponies for scout service, followed the old trail out of the valley of the Rio Grande to the tablelands eastward, up the steep sidling way into the passes of the Glorietta Mountains, down through lone, wind-swept canons, and on between wild, scarred hills, coming, at last, beyond the picturesque ridges, snow-crowned and mesa-guarded, into the long, gray, waterless lands of the Cimmarron country.  Here we journeyed along monotonous levels that rose and fell unnoted because of lack of landmarks to measure by, only the broad, beaten Santa Fe Trail stretched on unbending, unchanging, uneffaceable.

As the distance from spring to spring decreased, every drop of water grew precious, and we pushed on, eager to reach the richer prairies of the Arkansas Valley.  Suddenly in the monotony of the way, and the increasing calls of thirst, there came a sense of danger, the plains-old danger of the Comanche on the Cimarron Trail.  Bill Banney caught it first—­just a faint sign of one hostile track.  All the next day Jondo scouted far, coming into camp at nightfall with a grave report.

“The water-supply is failing,” he told us, “and there is something wrong out there.  The Comanches are hovering near, that’s certain, and there is a single trail that doesn’t look Comanche to me that I can’t account for.  All we can do is to ‘hold fast,’” he added, with his cheery smile that never failed him.

That night I could not sleep, and the stars and I stared long at each other.  They were so golden and so far away.  And one, as I looked, slipped from its place and trailed wide across the sky until it vanished, leaving a stream of golden light that lingered before my eyes.  I thought of the trail in the San Christobal Valley, and again I saw the sunlight on golden hair as Eloise with Little Blue Flower passed out of sight around the shoulder of a great rock beside the way.  At last came sleep, and in my dreams Eloise was beside me as she had been in the church of San Miguel, her dark eyes looking up into mine.  I knew, in my dream, that I was dreaming and I did not want to waken.  For, “Eloise loved Beverly, would always love him.”  Little Blue Flower had said it.  The face was far away, this side of misty mountain peaks, and farther still.  I could see only the eyes looking at me.  I wakened to see only the stars looking at me.  I slept again deeply and dreamlessly, and wakened suddenly.  We were far and away from the Apache country, but there, for just one instant, a face came close to mine—­the face of Santan—­the Apache.  It vanished instantly as it had come.  The night guard passed by me and crossed the camp.  The stars held firm above me.  I had had another dream.  But after that I did not sleep till dawn.