XXI

IN THE SHADOW OF THE INFINITE

And though there’s never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to mark his fall,
Thank God! we know that he “batted well”
In the last great Game of all.

         —­SERVICE.

We left Santa Fe within an hour, and struck out toward the unknown land where Beverly Clarenden, in the midst of uncertain friends, was being hunted down by an Apache band.  As our little company passed out on the trail toward Agua Fria, I recalled the day when we had gone with Rex Krane to this little village beside the Santa Fe River.  Eloise and Father Josef and Santan and Little Blue Flower were all there that day; and Jondo, although we did not know it then.  Rex Krane had told Beverly, going out, that an Indian never forgets.  In all the years Santan had not forgotten.

To-day we covered the miles rapidly.  Jondo and Father Josef rode ahead, with Esmond Clarenden and Felix Narveo following them; then came Eloise St. Vrain with Sister Gloria; behind them, Aunty Boone, with Rex and myself bringing up the rear.  Three pack-mules bearing our equipment went tramping after us with bobbing ears and sturdy gait.

I looked down the line of our little company ahead.  The four men in the lead were college chums once, and all of them had loved the mother of the girl behind them.  I have said the girl looked best by twilight.  I had not seen her in a coarse-gray riding-dress when I said that.  I had seen her when she needed protection from her enemies.  I had not seen her until to-day, going out to meet hardship fearlessly, for the sake of one who wanted her—­only an Indian maiden, but a faithful friend.  In the plainest face self-forgetfulness puts a beauty all its own.  That beauty shone resplendent now in the beautiful face of Mary Marchland’s daughter.

The world can change wonderfully in sixty minutes.  As we rode out toward the Rio Grande, the yellow sands, the gray gramma grass, the purple sage, the tall green cliffs, and, high above, the gleaming snow-crowned peaks, took on a beauty never worn for me before.  Why should a hope spring up within me that would die as other hopes had died?  But back of all my thought was the longing to help Beverly, and a faith in Aunty Boone’s weird, prophetic grip on things unseen.  He had just “gone out” to her—­why not to all of us?  I could not understand Little Blue Flower’s part in this tragedy, so I let it alone.

A day out from Santa Fe we were joined by the little squad of cavalrymen with whom we had parted company back at the Fort Bent camping-place.  With these we had little cause to dread personal danger.  The Apache band was a small, vicious gang that could do much harm to the Hopis, but it seemed nothing for us to fear.

Our care was to reach Beverly before the Hopis should rise up against Little Blue Flower, or the band led by Santan should fall upon them.  Father Josef had sent a runner on to tell them of our coming and to warn them of the Apache raid.  But runners sometimes come to grief.