With Bryton ill in the house, there was every reason why the one woman of his family should remain under the same roof indefinitely. It would mean the breaking down of barriers against heretic invaders, and so well content was Rafael over all this that he meant to nurse Keith Bryton as the most valuable friend the fates could send him. Elated with this idea, he called Don Eduardo, and together they rode out to meet them, and at sight of them wondered that even Raquel's cool exterior had not been more ruffled at the situation: she had given them no idea of what to expect. "Your wife, in the cause of humanity, will allow dying space for a heretic," observed Don Eduardo, dryly, "but she evidently thinks them worth little attention. The man looks worse than she led us to think. We should have brought Indios and a litter to meet them." Keith Bryton, with his head bound up so as to be almost unrecognizable, was tied on his horse and supported by the left arm of a bearded priest who rode on one side; while Dona Ana rode on the other, white-faced and tremulous, as she recognized the two men approaching. "For the love of God, be cautious--cautious!" she whispered to the priest. And the latter drew the hood of his habit lower over his brows, to shut out the sun. "Softly, Anita mia! From this moment I am under a vow of silence. This heretic and I have come out of the shadow of death together, he with a broken head and I with a broken arm. You can send your friends to see where three men are still unburied in the Trabuco hills. I ask of the Mission only time for silent meditation until my preserver, here, is better--or dead. I leave the words of it to you. From the moment help comes I have vowed silence. Come, come, Anita, girl. When we have blinded a woman like Raquel Arteaga for two days and nights, we need fear no eyes of men." And it was so. The condition of the two men was warrant of Ana's recital that three refugees of Flores's bandits had assaulted the priest, with the idea that he was of the vigilantes. When the Americano, by some chance, had taken a short cut across the ranges, and, hearing shots, had gone to the rescue, he found one man with a broken arm keeping his enemies at a distance with one of their own guns. He had stumbled on their camp while they slept. For the rest, Ana asked Rafael to send some one to bury the three bodies. They were too near the trail to be left like that, and would frighten horses when one rode that way.