ed to the middle of the river, and was evidently intending to
cross. Fearing that he would escape to the opposite meadow and add to
their difficulties, Balaam, with the idea of turning him round, drew his
six-shooter and fired in front of the horse, divining, even as the flash
cut the dusk, the secret of all this--the Indians; but too late. His
bruised hand had stiffened, marring his aim, and he saw Pedro fall over
in the water then rise and struggle up the bank on the farther shore,
where he now hurried also, to find that he had broken the pony's leg.

He needed no interpreter for the voices of the seeming owls that had
haunted the latter hour of their journey, and he knew that his beast's
keener instinct had perceived the destruction that lurked in the
interior of the wood. The history of the trapper whose horse had
returned without him might have been--might still be--his own; and he
thought of the rag that had fallen from the buzzard's talons when he had
been disturbed at his meal in the marsh. "Peaceable" Indians were still
in these mountains, and some few of them had for the past hour been
skirting his journey unseen, and now waited for him in the wood which
they expected him to enter. They had been too wary to use their rifles
or show themselves, lest these travellers should be only part of a
larger company following, who would hear the noise of a shot, and catch
them in the act of murder. So, safe under the cover of the pines, they
had planned to sling their silent noose, and drag the white man from his
horse as he passed through the trees.

Balaam looked over the river at the ominous wood, and then he looked
at Pedro, the horse that he had first maimed and now ruined, to whom he
probably owed his life. He was lying on the ground, quietly looking over
the green meadow, where dusk was gathering. Perhaps he was not suffering
from his wound yet, as he rested on the ground; and into his animal
intelligence there probably came no knowledge of this final stroke of
his fate. At any rate, no sound of pain came from Pedro, whose friendly
and gentle face remained turned toward the meadow. Once more Balaam
fired his pistol, and this time the aim was true, and the horse rolled
over, with a ball through his brain. It was the best reward that
remained for him.

Then Balaam rejoined the old mare, and turned from the middle fork of
Sunk Creek. He dashed across the wide field, and went over a ridge, and
found his way along in