of the gully just below me. There I slaked my thirst
and washed my face and wound and bound it up as best I could. All that
afternoon I lay by the stream, drinking and dipping my head in the water
until evening, when I regained sufficient strength to crawl back to the
top of the great rock where we made our last stand.

"There, a ghastly sight met my eyes. With his back against a large
bowlder where the enemy had placed him, sat your father, the Whirlwind,
still dressed in his war regalia and around him, just as they had
fallen, lay our dead comrades. I counted them. There were forty-eight in
all, and as you were not among the dead, I rightly conjectured, as it
soon afterward proved, that you had been taken prisoner. Three weeks
later I succeeded in reaching our people and told the news. A war party
was organized immediately, and I guided it back to the land of the
Ispali where after a battle, we learned of your capture and escape from
several of the Ispali whom we succeeded in capturing.

"That was ten years ago, and ever since then, we have sent out runners
each year to visit the towns and villages throughout the land in the
hope of finding you and bringing you back again to rule over us; for as
you know, Princess, you are the last of the royal blood. But in vain. In
spite of the fact that the White Cloud, our great Sachem, said you were
still alive, that he repeatedly saw you among the living in his visions
and predicted your return, we found no trace of you. That was because we
had overlooked Santa Fe. It lies so far east of our country that it
escaped our notice. We never imagined that you had crossed the Sierra
Madres in your flight, and had I not chanced to enter the Captain's
service, we probably never would have heard of you again.

"But now I understand that it was so intended--that the time was not yet
ripe. That the Great Spirit had ordained you should not return to your
people until you had become worthy of the charge which is about to be
conferred upon you, and which, as you shall presently learn, goes to
prove the truth of the subsequent prophecies the White Cloud made
concerning you." He paused and for some minutes gazed silently into the
fire. He had accompanied his narrative with intense, dramatic gestures
and expressions illustrative of its incidents; a characteristic common
to his race. Presently a smile lit up his face and looking up once more,
he resumed.

"You remember, Princess, how the White