red yards off the road they
halted and Gwynne called back into the darkness:

"How's Manuelito getting on, Pike?"

No answer.

The captain stepped back a few yards and listened. Not a sound of hoof
or wheel.

"Pike!" he called. "Where are you?"

No answer at all.

"Quick, Jim, give me the lantern," he called, and in a moment the
glimmering light went bounding down the rocky trail, back to the road.

And there the two soldiers met--Pike trotting up rapidly from the west,
the captain swinging his lantern in the Pass.

"Where's Manuelito?" was the fierce demand.

[Illustration: "WHERE'S MANUELITO?"]

"Gone, sir. Gone and taken the mules with him. The wagon's back there
four hundred yards up the road."

"My God! Pike. Give me your horse quick. You stay and guard my babies."

CHAPTER III.

ON THE ALERT.

Obedient to the captain's order, Pike had dismounted and given him the
horse, but it was with a sense of almost sickening dread that he saw him
ride away into darkness.

"Take care of the babies," indeed! The old trooper would shed his
heart's blood in their defence, but what would that avail against a gang
of howling Apaches? It could only defer the moment of their capture and
then--what would be the fate of those poor little ones and of honest old
Kate? Jim, of course, would do his best, but there remained now only the
two men to defend the captain's children and their nurse against a swarm
of bloodthirsty Tontos who were surely on their trail. There was no
telling at what moment their hideous war-cry might wake the echoes of
the lonely Pass.

With all his loyalty, Pike was almost ready to blame his employer and
old commander for riding off in pursuit of the Mexican. It was so dark
that no trail could be seen. He could not know in which direction
Manuelito had fled. It was indeed a blind chase, and yet the captain had
trotted confidently back past the deserted wagon as though he really
believed he could speedily overtake and recapture the stolen mules. Pike
thought that the captain should stay with his children and let him go in
pursuit or rather search, but every one who knew Gwynne knew how
self-confident he was and how much higher he held his own opinion than
that of anybody else. "It is his confounded bull-headedness that has got
us into this scrape," thought poor Pike, for the twentieth time, but the
soldier in him came to the fore and demanded action--action.

Knowing the habits of the