A careful inspection showed Steven that there was no way to get out, short of digging through five feet of sunbaked adobe with his finger nails. In addition to that was the trifling consideration of his feet being chained together. He spent the time examining the walls of his jail by the ray of sunlight that came through the little high barred window. Various rings were inbedded in massive beams sunk in the adobe. One for the throat, two for wrists, very suggestively. The dirty walls still held here and there bits of whitewash, which were scratched up with verses and threats inscribed by prisoners. From the ceiling hung two rings that also suggested possibilities from which Steven turned with a sick feeling at the stomach. In one of them a lock of human hair could still be seen. There were bloodstains upon the wall. From these gloomy contemplations and from a thousand plans for making his escape on the morrow, Steven was roused some time after dark by a turning of the lock in the one door. The bolts were shot back and the jailer appeared, with a covered candle lantern. “Get up,” he ordered, “_Seguido._ In a hurry. Follow me.” “How can I?” Steven protested. “Undo this thing.” The jailer stooped and fumbled with a rusty and primitive padlock. Steven stood up and followed the man out. He stood in a small bare courtyard in the light of the sinking moon. “Over there,” pointed the jailer. Steven saw a cloaked figure, a woman, who came quickly forward to meet him. “Señorita Consuelo! Again you have thought for me!” Steven really trembled as he looked down upon her. She _was_ small, he remembered, though he had not stood beside her before. She told him briefly, and with creditable clarity, all she had heard at dinner of the circumstances of his arrest. So they had held up poor Twombley, the trader from St. Louis, and taken his letter. Steven smiled grimly. “What did Señor Don Tiburcio have to say?--Oh, he was in Taos?” “But you are not a spy?” Consuelo pressed. Steven laughed. “I have never had a thought of such an office. That was just some business.” “It doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t care if you were,” she said, softly, looking away. Steven peered in amazement upon the small shadowed face; he looked over his shoulder. The jailer had disappeared. He put an arm around Consuelo’s shoulders and with one hand turned her face up to his. “Consuelo, when I am out of this, and can--I will tell you something. Will you trust me meanwhile? Since I first saw you in the window--I--I--I wanted to dance with you that night, awfully. But I could not, for Colonel Ceran insisted on my leaving and I had to go for fear of causing trouble. There was a lady with us, you know. My countrywoman. I shall get away from here tonight, and go to Taos, to see St. Vrain and Don Tiburcio, but I shall get back as soon as possible.”