ne of triumph from the
opposite bank; but both were quickly drowned by the roar of the torrent
as it closed over its double prey.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE DESERT.

About a fortnight after the events just related, other scenes were
taking place in a part of the desert which extends from Tubac to the
American frontier. But before referring to the actors let us describe
the theatre on which they once more met.

The vast plains which separated Mexico from the United States are known
only by the vague reports of hunters or gold-seekers--at least that part
watered by the river Gila and its tributaries. This river, which takes
its rise in the distant mountains of the Mimbres, passes under various
names through an immense extent of sandy barren country, the arid
monotony of which is interrupted only by the ravines hollowed by the
waters, which in their erratic course, ravage without fertilising.

The reader must imagine himself at a spot distant about sixty leagues
from Tubac. The sun, inclining towards the west, was already darting
oblique rays; it was the hour when the wind, although still hot, no
longer seems to come out of the mouth of a furnace. It was about four
o'clock in the afternoon, and light white clouds tinted with rose
colour, indicated that the sun had run two-thirds of his course; above,
in the deep blue sky, an eagle hung motionless over the desert, the only
visible inhabitant of the air. From the height where the king of birds
balanced himself majestically, his eye could perceive on the immense
plain, many human beings, some of whom were in groups, and others at so
great a distance apart as to be visible to him alone, and not to each
other.

Just beneath the soaring bird was a kind of irregular natural circle
formed by a hedge of cacti, with their fleshy leaves and thorny points,
with which were mingled the pale foliage of the _bois de fer_. At one
end of this hedge was an elevated piece of ground two or three feet
high, with a flat top, which overlooked it on all sides. All around
this entrenchment, untouched by the hand of man, stretched arid plains
or a succession of little hillocks which appeared like motionless waves
in a sea of sand.

A troop of about sixty men on horseback had alighted in this place. The
steaming horses showed that they had travelled fast. There was a
confused noise of human voices, the neighing of horses, and the rattling
of every kind of we