and palo verdes, the more cactus and greasewood there were, and other desert growths.  Patches of gray grass grew everywhere.  Gale began to wonder where the horses were.  Finally the trees and brush thinned out, and a mile-wide gray plain stretched down to reddish sand dunes.  Over to one side were the white horses, and even as Gale saw them both Blanco Diablo and Sol lifted their heads and, with white manes tossing in the wind, whistled clarion calls.  Here was grass enough for many horses; the arroyo was indeed an oasis.

Ladd and the others were awaiting Gale’s report, and they received it with calmness, yet with a joy no less evident because it was restrained.  Gale, in his keen observation at the moment, found that he and his comrades turned with glad eyes to the woman of the party.

“Senor Laddy, you think—­you believe—­we shall—­” she faltered, and her voice failed.  It was the woman in her, weakening in the light of real hope, of the happiness now possible beyond that desert barrier.

“Mercedes, no white man can tell what’ll come to pass out here,” said Ladd, earnestly.  “Shore I have hopes now I never dreamed of.  I was pretty near a dead man.  The Indian saved me.  Queer notions have come into my head about Yaqui.  I don’t understand them.  He seems when you look at him only a squalid, sullen, vengeful savage.  But Lord! that’s far from the truth.  Mebbe Yaqui’s different from most Indians.  He looks the same, though.  Mebbe the trouble is we white folks never knew the Indian.  Anyway, Beldin’ had it right.  Yaqui’s our godsend.  Now as to the future, I’d like to know mebbe as well as you if we’re ever to get home.  Only bein’ what I am, I say, Quien sabe?  But somethin’ tells me Yaqui knows.  Ask him, Mercedes.  Make him tell.  We’ll all be the better for knowin’.  We’d be stronger for havin’ more’n our faith in him.  He’s silent Indian, but make him tell.”

Mercedes called to Yaqui.  At her bidding there was always a suggestion of hurry, which otherwise was never manifest in his actions.  She put a hand on his bared muscular arm and began to speak in Spanish.  Her voice was low, swift, full of deep emotion, sweet as the sound of a bell.  It thrilled Gale, though he understood scarcely a word she said.  He did not need translation to know that here spoke the longing of a woman for life, love, home, the heritage of a woman’s heart.

Gale doubted his own divining impression.  It was that the Yaqui understood this woman’s longing.  In Gale’s sight the Indian’s stoicism, his inscrutability, the lavalike hardness of his face, although they did not change, seemed to give forth light, gentleness, loyalty.  For an instant Gale seemed to have a vision; but it did not last, and he failed to hold some beautiful illusive thing.

“Si!” rolled out the Indian’s reply, full of power and depth.

Mercedes drew a long breath, and her hand sought Thorne’s.