The crowd trailed off down Main street, and Judge Harlin and Colonel Whittaker stood treat together for the entire company, first at the White Horse and then at the Palmleaf saloon. The whistle of the train from the south, two hours late, broke in upon all this friendliness with a harsh reminder. Men suddenly recalled the fact that the mail from the north had come in long ago and had not brought the court order for which they had been waiting. The issues which had set the town at gun muzzles the day before again asserted themselves, and gradually the two factions began to mass, each on its own side of the street. In the midst of this the clerk of the court came out of the post-office with the missing order, which had gone astray in the mails and had just come in on the train from El Paso. Neither Joe Davis nor John Daniels could be found, and it was an hour later when they rode together into the town, coming back from the hanging of Antone Colorow. Daniels read the official paper through and handed it to Davis. "Well, Joe," he said, "the court says you are sheriff now, and I reckon there's no goin' back of that. I hope the office will bring you better luck than it has me. Let's have a drink." CHAPTER XXIII Darkness so dense lay over the Fernandez plain that not the faintest outline of the rimming mountains penetrated its blackness. Like some palpable, suffocating substance it filled the plain and mounted far up into the air, even to the blue-black sky, whence a million gemming stars pierced it with their diamond lances. Perched alone among the foothills of the Fernandez range, Juan Garcia's gray adobe house glimmered faintly through the darkness. Every sound about the house was hushed, and only the burro in the _jacal_ down the hillside made known to the silent plain that he was still awake. The door into the _portal_ opened softly, and with a quick, gliding, silent movement a dark figure came hastily out, closed the door, listened a moment, and then trod lightly across the _portal_ and down to the road. There it paused, and Amada Garcia's face, anxious and wistful, framed in the black folds of her mantilla, looked back at the silent house. A deep, dry sob shook all her frame and she half turned back, as if irresolute. Then she drew from her breast a folded bit of paper, pressed it to her heart and her cheek, and kissed it again and again. She cast another regretful, longing look at the gray adobe house, and started off in the direction of Muletown. The faintly glimmering track of the sandy road opened slowly before her in the darkness, and, drawing her mantilla closely around her shoulders, she walked briskly along the dusty highway.