“Deserted!” Beverly’s voice was too strong for a dying man’s.  “Uncle Esmond, Jondo, Eloise—­all of you—­Gail calls me a deserter.  Me!  Knock him over that precipice, won’t some of you?”

We listened eagerly as he went on: 

“Why, don’t you know that Charlie Bent and his renegade dogs crawled into camp like snakes and carried me out by force.  They had a time of it, too, but never mind.  Bent told me he left a note for you.  I supposed he would say I was dead.  And when Gail stirred, half awake, he went pacing around the camp, looking so near like me I thought it was myself and I was Charlie Bent.  I was roped and gagged then, but I could see.  Deserter!  I’m glad I got that white horse of his on the Prairie Dog Creek, anyhow.”

Beverly’s face paled suddenly and he lay still a little while.

“I’d better hurry.”  The smile was winsome.  “They didn’t give me a ghost of a chance to escape, but they didn’t harm a hair.  They kept me for a meaner purpose, and, well, I was landed, finally, at Santan’s door-step in the Apache-land.  Santan offered to let me go free if I’d persuade Little Blue Flower—­dead down there—­to marry him.  He had her come to me on pretense of my sending for her.  She hated the brute, and she was a woman, if she was an Indian.  I told him I’d see him in hell first, and I told her never to give in.  Poor girl!  It was a cruel test, but Santan knew how to be cruel.  He said he’d fix me, and I guess he has done it.”

“Oh no, Bev.  You are good for a century,” I declared, affectionately, holding his head on my knee.

“Little Blue Flower managed, somehow, to fool the Apache dog, and we escaped and got away to her people,” Beverly continued, speaking more slowly, “then she sent word to Father Josef.  But the Hopi folks were scared about the Apaches coming against them on account of harboring me, like a Jonah, among ’em; and they were going to make it hard for Little Blue Flower.  I don’t know heathen ethics in such things, but a handful of us had to cut for it.  I’m no deserter, though.  Don’t forget that.  As soon as I could be sure the little Indian woman’s life was safe I was going to get away and come home.  I could not leave her to be sacrificed after she had saved me from Santan’s scalping-knife.”

Beverly paused and looked at us.  His voice seemed weaker when he spoke again: 

“I thought, sometimes, that even if I wasn’t to blame for it, I ought to take Little Blue Flower with me when I got away.  Dear little girl! she gave me one smile and whispered ’Lolomi’ before she went just now.  I told her long ago I was just everybody’s friend.  I never meant to spoil anybody’s life, and I can meet her down at the end of the trail and never fear.”

Just then a half-wailing, half-purring cry came from Aunty Boone, who was standing beside a gnarled cypress-tree.