Neither Beverly nor Bill Banney nor Rex Krane knew what I had heard in the church concerning Jondo's early career, and I never spoke of it to them. But to all of us, outside of that intensified something indefinable in his face, he was unchanged. He met my eye with the open, frank glance with which he met the gaze of all men. His smile was no less engaging and his manner remained the same--fearless, unsuspicious, definite in serious affairs, good-natured and companionable in everything. I could not read him now, by one little line, but back of everything lay that withering, grievous thought--he was a murderer. Heaven pity the boy when his idol falls, and if he be a dreaming idealist the hurt is tenfold deeper. And yet--the trail was waiting there to teach me many things, and Jondo's words rang through the aisles of my brain: "If you ever have a real cross, Gail, thank the Lord for the open plains and the green prairies, and the danger stimulus of the old Santa Fé Trail. They will seal up your wounds, and soften your hard, rebellious heart, and make you see things big, and despise the little crooks in your path." Our Conestoga wagons, with their mule-teams, and the few ponies for scout service, followed the old trail out of the valley of the Rio Grande to the tablelands eastward, up the steep sidling way into the passes of the Glorietta Mountains, down through lone, wind-swept cañons, and on between wild, scarred hills, coming, at last, beyond the picturesque ridges, snow-crowned and mesa-guarded, into the long, gray, waterless lands of the Cimmarron country. Here we journeyed along monotonous levels that rose and fell unnoted because of lack of landmarks to measure by, only the broad, beaten Santa Fé Trail stretched on unbending, unchanging, uneffaceable. As the distance from spring to spring decreased, every drop of water grew precious, and we pushed on, eager to reach the richer prairies of the Arkansas Valley. Suddenly in the monotony of the way, and the increasing calls of thirst, there came a sense of danger, the plains-old danger of the Comanche on the Cimarron Trail. Bill Banney caught it first--just a faint sign of one hostile track. All the next day Jondo scouted far, coming into camp at nightfall with a grave report. "The water-supply is failing," he told us, "and there is something wrong out there. The Comanches are hovering near, that's certain, and there is a single trail that doesn't look Comanche to me that I can't account for. All we can do is to 'hold fast,'" he added, with his cheery smile that never failed him.