stopping at the Angelus to repeat the Credo, saw Luzbel plainly in the
likeness of a monstrous grizzly bear, mocking him by sitting on his
haunches and lifting his paws, clasped together, as if in prayer.
Nevertheless, with one hand grasping his reins and his rosary, and the
other clutching his whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so rapidly
that he reached the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining
the far-off Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland,
he descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of
red rock and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had left
it that morning; there was no trace of recent human visitation. Revolver
in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, peered behind
trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and manzanita, and listened. There
was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind over the pines below
him. For a while he paced backward and forward with a vague sense of
being a sentinel, but his mercurial nature soon rebelled against this
monotony, and soon the fatigues of the day began to tell upon him.
Recourse to his whisky flask only made him the drowsier, until at last
he was fain to lie down and roll himself up tightly in his blanket. The
next moment he was sound asleep.
His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. Then
the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of rock
rolled near his feet, but he stirred not. And then two black figures
were outlined on the crags beyond.
"St-t-t!" whispered a voice. "There is one lying beside the furnace."
The speech was Spanish, but the voice was Wiles's.
The other figure crept cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked
over. "It is Concho, the imbecile," said Pedro, contemptuously.
"But if he should not be alone, or if he should waken?"
"I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notification."
Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky
ledge, supporting himself by chemisal and brush-wood.
|