Benicia was waiting there. The eyes meeting his were blazing horror. Almost Grant read in them unthinkable accusation. He put out his hands to support her, for she was swaying in her effort over the doorstep. “No--no!” Benicia shuddered and drew away from him as though he were a man unclean. Mystified, Grant stepped aside to let her pass. He saw her run to the side of the high bed and kneel there. Her hands went out blindly to grope for the still features on the pillow. They played uncertainly over them, then rested on the heavy mane of hair. Her fingers repeated little smoothing gestures. A breathless faltering of love phrases in the Spanish came from her lips. Grant, seeing that the girl retained mastery over herself, tiptoed from the chamber; it was not meet that he should be witness to a soul’s acceptance of the bitter fact of death. He blundered into Bim coming back to the patio from his excursion at the head of servants beyond the great front door and told him what had happened; of the dagger dropped through the window and the murder. The big Arizonan reared back as if roweled. “My God, man, that leaves the girl alone here in this jumping-off place!--With that snake Urgo in the offing. Boy, it’s up to us to help her out!” Grant gripped his pal’s hand with a low, “I knew I could count on you, old scout.” The dry patter of sandals came down the arcade from a knot of lights where some of the servants had gathered in indecision waiting to be given orders. Grant recognized ’Cepcion in the mountainous figure approaching and was recalled to the necessities of the moment. “Tell her, Bim, what has happened and send her to her mistress. Then we must get out men to circle the Garden and prevent any person’s getting away.” Bagley strode to meet the major domo and rattled swift Spanish at her. The waddling Indian woman quivered and lifted her fat arms above her head. A dreadful wavering cry came from her lips. Instantly the cry was taken up by the servants at the far end of the patio--a bone-chilling, animal noise which climbed slowly to the highest register and ended in a yelp. At the sound Grant’s blood went cold. This Indian death howl was the cry of the desert kind, calling the despair of creatures chained to a land of drought and ever-present death. To escape it he went with Bim out of the great door to the unwalled spaces where the avenue of palms stood sentinels against the night. Beyond the bridge over the oasis stream lay the clutter of huts that was the Papago village, a fief under the overlordship of the manor house. Not a light showed among the thirty or forty beehive shapes when the two men started to walk under the palms; but suddenly a cry arose from the midst of the village answering that coming down the night wind from the mourners in the great house. Rumour of death had outstripped the two who walked.