Father Josef paused and looked at Eloise.

“To make the story short,” he began again, “Santan could not make the Hopi woman hate Beverly, although she knew that her love was hopeless, as it should be.  Pardon me, daughter,” Father Josef said, gently.  “She heard you two talking in a little porch one night at the Clarenden home, and she has believed ever since that you are lovers.  That is why she sent for you to come to help her now.”

“I saw Beverly give Little Blue Flower a brotherly kiss that night, and I told him, frankly, how it grieved me, because I had known at St. Ann’s about her love for him.  I had urged her to go with me to the Clarendens’, hoping that when she saw Beverly again she would quit dreaming of him.”

I looked away, at the paintings and the crucifix above the altar, and the long shafts of light on gray adobe walls, wondering, vaguely, what the next act of this drama might reveal.

“Beverly was always lovable,” Father Josef said.  “But now the message comes that he is out in the heart of Hopi-land, and because Little Blue Flower is protecting him her people may turn against her.  For Beverly’s sake, and for her sake, too, my daughter, we must start at once to find her and maybe save his life.  She wants you.  It is the call of sisterhood.  Sister Gloria and I will go with you.  I have much influence with my Hopi people.”

“Will they put Beverly to death?” I asked.

“I cannot tell, but—­see how long the arm of hate can be, my son—­Santan, the Apache, has been informed of Beverly’s coming by Marcos Ramero, gambler and debauchee.  And Marcos got it in some way from Charlie Bent, a Cheyenne half-breed, son of old Colonel Bent, a fine old gentleman.  Maybe you knew young Bent?”

“Yes, he holds a grudge against the Clarenden name because we made him play square with us at the old fort when we were children,” I told the priest.  “He yelled defiance at us in the battle on the Prairie Dog Creek last August.  Bev shot his horse from under him just to humble the insolent dog!  Beverly never was a coward,” I insisted, all my affection for my cousin overwhelming me.

“This makes it clearer,” Father Josef said.  “Through Bent to Ramero and Ramero to Santan, the word went, somehow.  The Apache has gathered up a band of the worst of his breed and they are moving against the Hopis to get Beverly.  You and Jondo and Clarenden and Krane will join the little squad of cavalry you left up in the mountains, and turn the Apache back, and all of us must start at once, or we may be too late.  May heaven bless our hands and make them strong.”

We bowed in reverence for a moment.  When we hurried from the dim church into the warm October sunlight, Aunty Boone sat on the door-step beside my horse.

“‘He’s jus’ gone out,’ I told ’em so, back there on the Missouri River.  He’s gone out an’ I’m goin’, hot streaks, to find him, Little Lees.  Whoo-ee!”