shared in the gayety
of the men who rode through the crisp and brilliant southern air. All
the time they ascended, and Ned saw far below him valley after valley,
much the same, at the distance, as they were when Cortez and his men
first gazed upon them more than three hundred years before. Yet the look
of the land was always different from that to which he was used north of
the Rio Grande. Here as in the great valley of Tenochtitlan it seemed
ancient, old, old beyond all computation. Here and there, were ruins of
which the Mexican peons knew nothing. Sometimes these ruins stood out on
a bare slope, and again they were almost hidden by vegetation. In the
valleys Ned saw peons at work with a crooked stick as a plow, and once
or twice they passed swarthy Aztec women cooking tortillas and frijoles
in the open air.

The troop could not advance very rapidly owing to the roughness of the
way, and Ned learned from the talk about him that they would not
overtake Cos until the evening of the following day. About twilight they
encamped in a slight depression in the mountain side. No tents were set,
but a large fire was built, partly of dry stems of the giant cactus. The
cactus burned rapidly with a light, sparkling blaze, and left a white
ash, but the heavier wood, mixed with it, made a bed of coals that
glowed long in the darkness.

Ned sat beside the fire on his serape with another thrown over his
shoulders, as the night was growing very chill with a sharp wind
whistling down from the mountains. The kindness of his captors did not
decrease, and he found a genuine pleasure in the human companionship and
physical comfort. Almonte found a comfortable place, took a guitar out
of a silken case, and hummed and played a love song. No American officer
would have done it at such a time and place, but it seemed natural in
him.

Ned could not keep from being attracted by the picture that he
presented, the handsome young officer bending over his guitar, his heart
in the song that he played, but ready at any instant to be the brave and
wary soldier. Circumstance and place seemed to the boy so full of wild
romance that he forgot, for the time, his own fate and the message that
he wished to bear to those far Texans.

It was very cold that night on the heights, and, now and then, a little
snow was blown about by the wind, but Ned kept warm by the fire and
between the two serapes. He fell asleep to the tinkling of Almonte's
guitar. They sta