New Britain herald., 1923-01-29
so ON WITH THE STORY

Presently they swung far and ava,
 toward the north and west, to skir
 the foot Of the Mesa Grande tha
 lifted It's flat top high above the sur
 rounding levels. to find the marrow
 trail that went up it's south side iI
 steep and dangerous slants, and [,
 climb to It's high tableiand where in,
 ancient Indian huts stood, hollow ana
 deserted, whipped by the winds and
 eaten by their sands.
 These silent places held a lure fo,
 Val Hannon, had always drawn her
 from the time when. a little child, her
 father had first brought her here to scan the world below.
 Val sat straight in her saddle. her hands folded on the pommel.
 And as they rested so in the hush Of the eternal silence alone on the mesa with it's ghosts of vanished people. something moved on the plain below. far off to the west, and caught their searching gaze.
 A band of horsemen rode there. swiftly. sweeping out of the north where lay the town of Santa Leandra and one shot out ahead, a leader.
 The girl shaded her eyes with her hand and watched this rider and his Ahorse. A red horse it was---a great red horse whose mane lifted above him like cloud, whose beautiful body lay stretched along the earth in skimming flight, whose whole make and seeming were oddly familiar. For a long moment she watched, while her eyes grew round with won- der and her lips fell apart. Then she dropped her hand and laid it on Redstar's neck as if she made sure of his living prerence.
 "Sweetheart,yy she said at last, in- credulousay you weren't here be- meath me | swear you ran wonder, as sure as death!''
 And far off there where he rode like the wind itself toward the mys- tery of the all-engulfing Border. Ve- lantrie rose in his stirrups and scanned the solitary horse and rider, standing like statue high on the mesa's edge.
 wondrois beauty of the red king facing him, or to know his rider for woman. But with his characteris- tic gaiety he stood up for second | and sweeping the broad hat from his head. waved it in circles
 And Val Hannon, answering the strangers signal, raised hand above her head.
 CHAPTER ".
 The Cross in the Wilderness
 The summer drowsed upon the land. The winds had died this day and the brazen sun was monarch. Where the Little Antelope trickled fuggishly between it's low banks. to lurse the struggling growth of trees that lined it, the heat was somewhat tempered. Cottonwoods grew here, tall and slim, and many wasatcha trees to spread their lacy shadow, and there were desert flowers planted in stone edged beds among the sand. while the sword-like spikes of the maguey plant reached out to catch the unwary. This was a desert gar den, rugged, grassless, inured to heat and drought, yet pleasant to the eye and mind as many more favored spot was not To the west of the garden and beyond the trees, standing put against the sun and the desert winds like a speared and shielded the long blank walls of the Mission took the light on their pale expense in way to be seen for many niles across the plains.
 Peons, waifs on the changing tides ,f fortune, refugees from the turbu- ent land across the Border. those broken and dispossessed by the war ing factions that destroyed their own md got nowhere, the. sick in mind