Mexicans approached. The proprietor of the
store started to explain, when the little woman
draped in a black mantilla interrupted him with
further sobbing and a pointing finger -- pointing
back across the settlement.

"_Caballeros_," she began, "you coom please
wit' me, I -- I haf show you soomt'ing." Then
again she burst into weeping.

Startled, Stephen arose, and the others gained
their feet. They set out across the settlement.
They struck between some adobe houses, crossed
some back yards, dodged under clothes-lines,
and found themselves in a tiny graveyard. The
woman brought them to a stop before a fresh
mound of earth. Here she knelt in another outburst
of tears, while the gimlet-eyed storekeeper
explained.

It was a little boy twelve years old. The marauders
had stolen his pig. He had bitterly denounced
them, and one -- evidently the leader -- had
shot him. It was too bad! But it was not all.
In one of the houses, the large house they had
passed in coming here, lay an old man, seventy-eight
years of age, dying from a rifle-shot. Yes,
the renegade Indians had shot him also. What
had he done? He had defended his chickens
against theft. It was too bad! It was all too
bad! Could not there something be done? To
live in peace, to live in strict accord with all known
laws, such was the aim and such had been the
conduct of these people. And then to have a
band of cutthroats, murderers, thieves, descend

[[232]]

p231 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p232w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p233

v?