Hardly knowing what to do next she found her way to the Hotel Moctezuma, and under its flower-hung balconies found rest for the night. While she waited for the man servant to carry water up to her room she inquired from the _moso_ in a low voice if he had seen anything the last few days of a boy of twelve--a _guero_, a blonde, with front teeth wide apart. At that description the man started involuntarily, and then shook his head stupidly without answering. Raquel pressed upon him a piece of money which loosened his tongue. He motioned her to follow, picking up her saddle and bags to carry them to her room. When they had entered he whispered cautiously, “What do you wish to know, _gracioso Señorito_?” Yes, such a lad had been at the hotel last night and had been attached as orderly for the officers and soldiers. The lad had inquired of him, old Pacifico, where a Rancho Escondido was. He had never heard of such a place. And the soldiers had departed that day, taking the boy with them. Raquel went to bed trembling with relief. Sleep came at once, but she woke before dawn. There was a plentiful breakfast served on a white cloth by candle light, and then she was off. Before her lay seventy-five miles before she could reach the Ranch of the Desert, their hidden rendezvous. Good old Paintbrush--how splendid were his sinewy legs! At regular intervals she dismounted, took off his saddle, cooled his back, smoothed the blanket. When they came to a stream she washed him off. Late the next afternoon the road brought them up to one of those ruined houses that lay in the wake of soldiers, dotting the revolution-ridden land. The whole front of the dwelling had been torn away. There it stood, its poor mutilated interior still adorned with framed pictures, a cupboard still standing in the corner, a table in the center of the floor. It looked like a stage set, its homely intimacies bared to the passer-by. It must have been a good country home once, like the comfortable peasant homes of Europe. “I’ll sleep on the other side,” thought Raquel. She wanted to reach Nacozari before noon the next day; to start out from there again for El Escondido. How would she find the ranch if she did not run across some one to guide her again? On the other side of the house she found the remnants of a family living in what remained of the house. She stood upon a threshold that remained with no enclosing walls. “_Entra, entra_, come in,” an old crone cooking over a little fire in a corner called hospitably. Through a far doorway Raquel caught a momentary glimpse of an exquisite madonna face, its perfect oval framed in long braids. It vanished with terror-stricken swiftness. “Could I perhaps get something to eat, and rest here tonight?” Raquel asked wearily. “I am on my way north. Do you perhaps know where El Rancho Escondido is?”