She could see that again the pigeons were circling excitedly; that from
the baking street little puffs of dust arose to hang idly in the still
air as though they were painted upon the clear canvas of the sky. She
heard the voices of men, faint, quick sounds against the tolling of the
bell. Then suddenly all was very still once more; Ignacio had allowed
the Captain to resume his silent brooding, and came to her.

"I must go to see who it is," he apologized. "Then I will know better
how to ring for him. The sheepman from Las Palmas, I bet you. For did
I not see when just now I passed the Casa Blanca that he was a little
drunk with Señor Galloway's whiskey? And does not every one know he
sold many sheep and that means much money these days? Si, señorita; it
will be the sheepman from Las Palmas."

He was gone, slouching along again and in no haste now that he had
fulfilled his first duty. What haste could there possibly be since,
sheepman from Las Palmas or another, he was dead and therefore must
wait upon Ignacio Chavez's pleasure? Somehow she gleaned this thought
from his manner and therefore did not speak as she watched him depart.

That portion of the street which she could see from her bench was
empty, the dust settling, thinning, disappearing. Farther down toward
the Casa Blanca she could imagine the little knots of men asking one
another what had happened and how; the chief actor in this fragment of
human drama she could picture lying inert, uncaring that it was for him
that a bell had tolled and would toll again, that men congregated
curiously.

In a little while Ignacio would return, shuffling, smoking a dangling
cigarette, his hat cocked against the sun; he would give her full