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Show 76 WESTERN WILDS. our situation, at one moment mingling our tears, the next elate with firm determination. A score of plans I proposed were in turn re-jected. To regain American territory was simply impossible. The irregular war with the Texans continued, and the country between us and the Arkansas was swarming with scouts. Every point was guarded. Starvation was possible, capture certain, death probable. My late companions were now languishing in Mexican dungeons; those who lived to return home would probably do so with broken health. Death would certainly overtake many of them in prison. From such a fate she prayed the Virgin to deliver me. Hour after hour passed ; I would do or dare aught for her ; but to fly now was to lose her forever. At last she spoke : " ' Gomez is our hope. He is not a peon, but a free Pueblo. Many years absent from his town, he is bound to no cacique. Far to the west are other Pueblos who owe no duty to the Mexican Republic ; but between them and ours there is a friendship. Once they had a common ruler, and long kept the sacred fires burning for him. Gomez will guide you to that people. In any of those pueblos you are safe. Stay till there is peace with the Tejanos; then return, and .' Her light smile changed to a deep blush. "' May the Virgin bless and protect you ! Every night I shall look upon the star that rises earliest above the peak where I first saw your face. In one year I feel that you will return one year. Oh, Santa Maria, is it eternity?' "' No, to the young and ardent it is long; but it will pass at last/ "' Now, go to rest; and as soon as Gomez can supply his place among the vacqueros, enter upon the journey. To him can I intrust my chief treasure.' " Three nights after, as I lay asleep, Gomez touched me, and said in Spanish: ' The senorita waits; we start in an hour.' Down the sharp caflon, and out upon the western plain we found the animals tied ready for us, and in a little grove of algodones beyond the hacienda I met Dolores. Need I recount our parting. It was a short, delicious agony. I held her to my heart as we exchanged vows of eternal constancy; then, pressing kiss after kiss upon her lips, I hurried away for I knew not what in my ear her parting words, ' May all the saints watch over my love.' " Hastily crossing the narrow valley and ascending the slope west of it, at daylight we reached the first pueblo, the nominal home of Gomez, who maintained semi- allegiance to its cacique and fiscal |