is gone--lost
beyond a doubt." "Lost!" said I, expecting some treachery on the part
of Bradley and Don Luis; "How? I don't believe it; I never will believe
it." Bradley gave me an angry look, but said nothing.

"Where's Malcolm?" exclaimed I. "Dead by this time, I am afraid,"
replied Bradley. "Good God!" I exclaimed aloud, and involuntarily
muttered to myself, "Then you have murdered him." I noticed Bradley
examined the countenances of the whole party by turns, and, as my eye
followed his, I saw that every one looked sullen and angry. He, too,
evidently saw this, and said nothing more the whole evening. Don Luis,
however, volunteered the following explanation of the mystery.

He informed us that, after we had parted from them, they put their
horses into a quick trot, to escape as soon as possible into a more
agreeable-looking sort of country. They suspected some vagabond Indians
were hovering about, and as the ground they were travelling over
afforded too many opportunities of concealment to gentry of their
character, they were anxious to reach a more open district. Their road
lay, for several miles, over a succession of small hills, intersected
by valleys covered with stunted oak trees, and with here and there a
solitary pine. Just at a point, when they were winding round a ridge of
hills, which they imagined separated them from the Sacramento Valley,
having a small skirting of timber on their left hand, he, Don Luis,
being slightly in advance of Bradley and Malcolm, happened to turn his
head round, when he saw a horseman stealthily emerging from the
thicket, at a point a short distance in their rear. In a very few
moments another horseman joined the first, and before Don Luis could
give an alarm, the second rider, who, it seems, was an Indian, had
risen in his saddle and had flung out his lasso, which, whizzing
through the air true to its aim, descended over Malcolm's head and
shoulders. Don Luis, who saw all this, immediately jumped from his
horse, and, placing his finger on the trigger of his rifle, fired just
as the Indian was galloping away. The ball entered his horse's head,
when the beast was brought to a stand, and, in a second of time, rolled
over with its rider beneath it, just as the noose had tightened, and
Malcolm was being drawn off his horse to the ground. Bradley, who only
knew of the danger they were in by hearing the lasso whirl through the
air, immediately dismounted, and, like Don Luis, sheltered h