The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-05-25

patch OF cool grass where q little red
haired nuchachO daily frolicked in yell
low nakedness. Thither after futile forays
Jalisco's horsemen liked to ride, wonder
ing at the red-haired baby Of Anas-
tasia, munching her tortilla and gulping
the blue-whfte milk of her goats. A red
headed Mexican is a marvel even in the
free zone
Senior Patricio Dowd rode with the
troop Of Jalisco. is face was as red a IS
his hair, and the freckles on his nose
and neck were the han marks of the
northern native. So the troopers nick
named Anastasia's baby ''Patricio," and
made jokes at the red rurale over their
cigarettes and mescal. The big Irish
man grinned and wagged his head, aware
that he was a good Jaliscan, and plait
ed quiTt, sitting crOss-legged by the
campfire.
At sun-up one morning Dowd and six
comrades hailed at Anastasia's hut. The
door was open. The grass was trampled
as by horses feet. On the door of her
room they found her stark, bloody ro-
sary twined among her brown fingers and
a tuft of straight black hair in her out
stretched hand. In the shadow of the
we'll the old man lay, with his face
against a rock and a flock of scared goats
lowering about him. The red-haired child
was gone
"'Malajanr said Dowd, peering under
the bed and stirring the white curtains
as he looked for the boy.
They loaded their rifles and found IN
the tawny sand the trail OF a single horse.
1t led toward the foot hills, and as they
galloped with eyes on the ground the men
were sorry for the red rurale- He rode
like fury with his blue eyes glued to the
trail and his Spanish spurs beading his
horse into a runaway flight.
There was no keeping pace with him.
The cloud of yellow that rose from the
hill road where his course lay swan
around in the hot breeze and faded
against the purple hills. The tattoo Of
hoof-beats, ike a mufled drum or q rat
tie of guns, as they smote low or loud
on the shoal or the rocks, faded at last
and Down was all alone, galloping. Ten
miles from Tolocan ne found a riderless
horse. foaming and breathless. Then he
stopped.
Ping! lng-ng-g," said the rife Of Nal
alan.
Dowd slipped down in the dust and
crawled into the shadow of great rock.
He heard the two horses scampering
away into the canyon. A thousand feet
above him an eagle sailed and screamed.
The pulsing, summer air was SO still and
clear that he could hear his own heart
beat. Except the eagle no sign Of life
appeared. Upon the slanting hill-sides
small dabs of dusty green quivered IN
the heat against the dun sands. He
crawled upon the rock and measured each
clump of scrub oak and says. till his eyes
swan in the glare. He sat like a craven
image for minutes and the whole world
seemed dead and ghostly IN the sun. Then
a stone, let loose above. rolled softly
down upon his left. e little cataract Of
loOsened shale and sand dripping into the
gulch beside him. His eye followed the
course of this small disturbance. Up the
bare ascent he glanced without moving
till his eye rested upon a tuft OF stunted
brush a hundred yards aloft. lie did not
stir till he saw, like a blotch Of blood
upon the leaves a mOtionless red spot.
Then he slipped down OF the rock and
as his Winchester crept over the verge,
pointed at the blotch of red. he whis-
pered:
Praise Cod It's Malajan's red hand
kerchief"
Just as his bony finger found the trig-