The Triumphs of Atropos [pp. 412-424]

THE TRIUMPHS OF ATROPOS 417
giJ 1, you`11 have to ride home on my shoul- child and was covering its face with kisses,
der, now." intermingled with every term of endear He gathered up the pebbles, took the ment the Spanish tongue affords. Another
child on one arm, went back down the path instant, and two flying horsemen from out
where the bluff was less precipitous, and by the rolling shadows reined up beside them.
th~ aid of the bushes and points of rock, So sudden was their stop, so violent the
drew himself up its face to another rude check, that one of the horses, losing his
ledge above, which extended down to the feet on the une~en slope, plunged heavily to
beaten trail at a point beyond the bridge. the ground, the rider alighting upon his feet
Then he strode almost as readirapidlyforward, ly as though he
his grief at the had dismounted
loss of his horse in theusualway.
offset by the Afterthe catgood fortune of tle were turned
his own escape in above, the
and that of the boys had dashed
child, and his on to the ranch,
clear, resonant ahead of the
voice filling all older men, and
the spaces of as they reached
the gorge as he it, their quick
sang, eyes had dis"Nita, fair Juamta, cerned against
Lean thou fondly on the skylight in
my heart." the southeast
He had ex- the figure of a
~ected that, on woman rapidly
emerging from crossing a rise
the hollow of on the ladderthe ravine, they bridge trail.
would find abet- They called
ter light above, aloud for Juanbut it was not ita and the Seso. A thick, fiora, without
murky darkness response.
extended across "And what's
the northern sky the matter now;
and advanced sonny?" asked
rapidly towards Robert.
the south, its The other
near approach- solved the pr6bing, billowy lem as promptly
front present- as he had before
ing the appear- MARKHAM CALLED ALOUD THE NAME OF MIS HOHSE accepted the
ance of a vast, challenge.
rolling mass of "The kid`s
smoke and vapor. The chill wind that run away to meet the fiorid boss, and the
already preceded bore from out its gloom Senora`s gone after her.
the agonizing cry of a woman's voice call- "Well," said I3ob, "if the young one
ing,`~Juanita! Juaniscita!" with an ex- comes to that narrow track and the bridge,
pression so intense that it sounded as she`s like to tumble in."
though one cried from the spirit land for a Then the faithful and tireless ca~a11o~,
sonA that was lost. Then came the swift unless their instincts had also grasped the
fluttering of a woman's garments, and the situation, must have thought that the devil
Se~ora Antonia had snatched away the had bodily broken loose behind them, so
VOL. xxxi-27