my Colt's revolver!

I hastily thrust it into the belt under my smock-frock, where it was
quite hidden.

Then the horses were brought round and we prepared to mount; but before
we departed there was still a little ceremony to be gone through.

There were some left with drawn revolvers at the end of each carriage,
almost to the last moment, but as the bulk of the band left the train
they brought with them a half-breed dressed in the ordinary frock-coat
and tall hat of civilisation, in a state of abject terror.

"Who is this man?" I asked the lieutenant, who happened to be near me.

He laughed as he twisted up a cigarette and answered me.

"He used to belong to our little society once," he said; "but he ran
away and gave evidence against another member, who was shot."

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.

He made a motion with his hand in his loose neckerchief of a man being
hanged.

"No, surely not!" I cried, in horror.

"You'll see," he replied, as he began to smoke.

They dragged forward the shivering wretch, who had a prosperous look
about him; and as they pulled him out of the train his tall hat fell
off and rattled on the iron rails. No one stopped to pick it up; it
was not worth while.

The man immediately following him carried his lasso in his hand. They
lost very little time; there was a tree with a convenient branch, just
near the line, and in a trice they threw the rope over this and knotted
the end into a noose.

Then there was a call for a priest, and there happening to be a Padre
in the train, the wretched man was accorded five minutes with him as he
stood.

Within three minutes more the body of the half-breed was swinging and
struggling in the air; but the struggles were not for long.

The desperadoes all around me whipped out their revolvers and commenced
a rattling fusillade, the mark being the body of the man swinging on
the tree.

* * * * *

My blood ran cold as I listened to the pinging of the bullets and the
resounding shrieks of the ladies in the train.

Not till then did the last of the men leave the train, and one of them
I saw, to my astonishment, bore in his arms apparently a woman in a
cloak.

In a brilliant gleam of electric light, shot from the train in the
darkness, I thought I saw the face of my Dolores, with a white gag
across the mouth, but the idea seemed so preposterous that I did not
give it another thought, thinking it to