"At the place where the Soledad trail leaves that of Mesa Blanca."
Rotil stared at her, and then turned to Kit.
"No, General, I don't," he said honestly enough, "but these women have many such----"
"No," contradicted Rotil, "they haven't,--there's a difference."
He had seized the crucifix and held it, while he scanned the faces, and then brought his gaze back to Tula.
"You will show me that place, and prove yourself, _muchacha_," he said grimly. "There's something--something--Do you know, you damned young crane, that I can have my men shoot you against the wall out there if you lie to me?"
"Yes, my General, but it is better to give lead to enemies--and not friends. Also a knife is cheaper."
"Silence! or you may get both!" he growled. "Here, look well--you--all of you! Have any of you but this creature seen it?"
He held it out, and Valencia, who was nearest, caught sight of it.
"Ai! Tula!" she said in reproof, "you to take that when the poor----"
Tula flashed one killing look at her, and Valencia stopped dead, and turned an ashen gray, and Rotil watching!
"Ah--ha! I thought it!" he jeered. "Now whose trick is it to make me a fool? Come, sift this thing! You," to Valencia, "have looked on this before. Whose is it?"
"So!" he said with a sort of growl in the voice, "something chokes you? Look at me, not at the others! Also listen:--if a lie is told to me, every liar here will go before a firing squad. Whose is this crucifix?"
Valencia's eyes looked sorrow on Tula, still under his hand, and then on the wood and silver thing held up before her. The sun was just rolling hot and red above the mountains, and Rotil's shaggy head was outlined in a sort of curious radiance as the light struck the white wall across the patio at his back. Even the silver of the crucifix caught a glimmer of it, and to Valencia he looked like the warrior padres of whom her grandmother used to tell, who would thunder hell's terrors on the frightened neophytes until the bravest would grovel in the dust and do penances unbelievable.
That commanding picture came between her and Rotil,--the outlaw and soldier and patriot. She stumbled forward with a pleading gesture towards Tula.
"Excellency, the child does no harm. She is a stranger in the house. She has picked it up perhaps when lost by the señora, and----"