"
"Well, I'm glad you feel that way. He felt good, I kin tell you that. He
looked ten years younger in five minutes, for he said as how he knew
you'd keep your word. I went straight off and managed to have a word
with young Carrillo. It warnt no trouble to make him promise to keep his
mouth shet; he's more afraid of the priest than he is of his father's
green-hide lariat, and that's sayin' a heap. When I went back to the
Mission I told the priest that I thought as how I'd go on to Ortega's,
and see if you got there all right. When I got there and heard as how
you hed crossed the mountains in a terrible storm I just hed to go on. I
made straight for old Sanchez', who has a hacienda and raises grapes
just this side of the river. He was drunk as usual, but his servants
hedn't seen nothin' of you, and then I was seriously alarmed. That was
at night, and I couldn't do nothin' until daylight, so I got a good
sleep and the next mornin' I started for Mojave. I know it pretty well,
and there was no danger of gittin' lost. At nightfall I found your
horses and ponchos--the horses was dead, poor things. I slept on the
desert that night, and the next mornin' rode back as hard as I could
put, suspicionin' that you would have sense enough to strike west.
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