But as the carriage came lurching down from the mesa, the oldest of the vaqueros, a very black Indian, rode back to camp, and at sight of Dona Luisa's face white and drawn in the morning light, he slid from his bronco, and ignoring the cook's impatient questions stood with bent head uncovered, until the old mistress noticed him and spoke. "You are Benito, are you not?" she asked, as she brought him to the carriage with a gesture, and rested her hand on his to alight. "Yes, senora," said the old man with grave courtesy, though trembling with pleasure at the honor she chose to bestow; "I am Benito. I used to break all the horses you rode. No one else was let put a hand on them. You do not forget; I thank you." "I could not forget the things of my home. Is there coffee? I am very glad." She held her left hand against her side, and the women exchanged frightened glances at her pallor and the strange weakness of her voice. While she drank the hot coffee Jacoba deftly drew the old vaquero aside to look at a bit of broken carriage harness which Pedro was mending with rawhide. "Benito, is there no boy here to ride fast to the Mission?" she demanded when out of hearing of the others. "Our Dona Luisa is a sick woman, and no one dare say it. Some one must go and have a bed ready--everything!" "There is no boy here. The horses were run off last night by Juan Flores or Capitan--no one knows how many. All the men have gone that way. I ride to the Mission. Don Rafael, he go to San Diego to-day." "To-day? Santa Maria! he may have gone! Ride fast!" "He not go yet," and the old man shrugged his shoulders. "Too early. Army men going away. Don Rafael make barbecue yesterday, and last night he have a big dance for the Americanos in the Mission." "Hush! Ride fast! We will drive as slow as she will let us. But tell Don Rafael Arteaga I say for him to meet his mother on the road." Raquel noticed the old man cantering slowly along the level green, and heard the sound of his horse galloping rapidly once he was out of sight past the fringe of sycamores and low growths along the river. "For what is that, Jacoba?" she asked. "Oh, some bandits have run off some horses--they may send more vaqueros," she replied as easily as she could with the girl watching her like that. Raquel looked as though she thought all the truth might not be in the reply, but she turned quietly away. "I would have ridden with him if I had known," she said, and went back to Dona Luisa, who was so eager to continue the journey that she would wait for no breakfast but the coffee. "Cut another strap of the harness and take time to mend it," muttered Jacoba to Pedro; "we are not all so near to being angels that we can live without eating." Thus was a little more time gained. Benito made the second crossing where the river bends around the mesa, and there met one of the boys from the village looking for a pair of strayed mules.