e glimmer of camp fires, but they
were all at such a distance that they paid no attention to them, but
continued on the even tenor of their way.

Just as day was breaking, they found themselves fairly among the
mountains. The wildest crags and peaks were all about them, and they
were compelled to keep close to the pass they were following. This wound
in and out among the fastnesses, not more than a hundred feet in width
in some places, while in others it was fully a quarter of a mile broad.
Here they were in constant apprehension of meeting with their old
enemies; but there was an air of solitude and desertion about them that
was impressive in the extreme. They halted but a short time to let their
animals "blow," while they themselves made an observation. Still nothing
new or alarming was discovered, and they hurried forward as before.

Just as the sun reached meridian, the two hunters came upon that place
known as Devil's Pass, which they were certain had witnessed a fearful
tragedy during the previous twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CAVALRY ESCORT.

The stage which left Santa Fe on that beautiful spring morning, bound
for Fort Havens on the journey heretofore referred to, carried two
passengers. One was Corporal Hugg, a soldier who had been engaged a
dozen years upon the plains--a rough, good-natured, chivalrous fellow,
who, having lost a leg in the service of his country, enjoyed a pension,
and had become a sort of family servant in the employ of Colonel
Chadmund. He was devotedly attached to little Ned and his greatest
delight was in watching or joining him at play, exercising a
surveillance over him something like that which a great, shaggy
Newfoundland holds over a pet child. The corporal was able to stump
about upon his cork leg, and when the time came for the lad to make the
journey through the mountains to Fort Havens--a journey which he had
been looking impatiently forward to for fully a year--it followed as a
natural sequence that the corporal should bear him company.

Ned bade his mother an affectionate good-bye, and she pressed him to her
breast again and again, the tears filling her eyes, and a sad misgiving
chilling her heart. The reports at the time were that the Indians to the
southwest were unusually quiet, no word having yet reached the capital
of New Mexico of the formidable raids that were being organized in the
Apache country. Besides this, the stage, which was properly an
ambu