g the summit they stopped to rest,
panting hard with fatigue. Again the captain resorted to his little
glasses and looked long and eagerly over the broad stretch of country to
the east, but it was all in vain. No living creatures were in sight.

Directly in front, the trail wound downwards over an incline so steep
that it looked as though horses and mules could never have made those
hoof tracks, but that only goats could have gone that way. The poor old
bay looked piteously at his master as though imploring him not to force
him to undertake that steep descent, but Gwynne could show no mercy now.
He had come too far to turn back. His only hope, if he could not find
the scouting party, was to make his way along the east side of the range
back to the little camp in Sunset Pass. He prayed God to watch over and
protect his little ones, and then, with almost a sob rising to his
throat, he tried to speak cheerfully to poor "Mac;" he patted the
drooping head of his faithful old servitor and, calling to him to
follow, he pressed forward, and half sliding, half stepping, he began
the steep descent. The poor horse braced his fore feet and stiffened his
knees and came skating over the loose slate after him. All went
tolerably well until they were about two hundred feet from the rushing
waters of the fork, foaming and swirling over the rocks below, and
there, coming upon a sharp point around which they had to make their
way, Gwynne had taken only three or four steps downward and was about to
turn and speak encouragingly again to "Mac," when the horse's fore feet
seemed to shoot from under him; he rallied, gathered himself, stumbled,
and then, plunging heavily forward, crashed down upon his master, rolled
completely over him, and then went sliding and pawing desperately to the
edge of the rocky precipice, over which he shot, a huge, living bowlder
and fell with a thud upon the jagged rocks below. For some minutes
Gwynne lay where he had been hurled, stunned and senseless; then he
slowly revived, found that his left arm was severely wrenched and
bruised, and that the blood was streaming from a long gash in his
forehead. Slowly and painfully he made his way to the foot of the steep,
bathed his head in the cool waters and bound it up as well as he could
with his big silk handkerchief. He was fainter, weaker now, than he had
been before, but never for an instant could he forget the little ones at
the Pass.

"Oh, God help me and bring me