that foremost mule now placidly cropping the scant herbage while the
skirmish line pushed ahead. Presently a signal of some kind was given
and repeated. The Indians in charge of the mules hastened with them to
the mouth of the Pass, and as they did so, that singular pack came
closer under Pike's powerful glass.

"It's their prisoner," he uttered. "They have driven and goaded him
until he fainted from exhaustion. Then they had to wait for the mules to
be brought up to the hillock--then lashed the poor fellow upon the back
of one of them and pushed ahead." For some purpose of their own they
were keeping him alive, and death by fearful torture was something to be
looked forward to in the near future. The corporal continued to gaze as
though fascinated until the leading mule got almost under him, and then
he gave a groan of helplessness and misery as he exclaimed, "My God! My
God! It's Manuelito!"

CHAPTER VI.

MANUELITO'S FATE.

For ten minutes Pike remained at his post of observation on top of the
rock, watching the Indians as they slowly and cautiously moved down the
Pass in the direction of the abandoned camp. The children, worn out with
their play, and the fatigues of the climb, were sleeping soundly in the
little cave on the peak,--Nellie, with her fair head pillowed in patient
Kate's lap. Black Jim, too, was lying where the sun shone full upon him,
and snoring away as placidly as earlier in the morning.

Kate, far back in the cave, had no idea what was going on in the Pass
below; but her soul was still filled with dread and anxiety. The old
trooper knew well that just as soon as the Indians came to the wagons
and found them abandoned, their first care would be to secure all the
plunder from them possible. Then they would probably dispose of
Manuelito after their own cruel designs; and then, if darkness did not
come on in the meantime, they would probably begin their search for the
fugitives. There would be no difficulty to Indian trailers in following
their track up the mountain side; of this Pike was well assured. But the
wary old trooper had taken the precaution, every time that he and Jim
had gone to and from the camp, to take a roundabout path, so as to bring
their trail around the base of the mountain in front of the cave, and in
this way the Indians in following would come directly in front of their
barricade at the mouth and from sixty to a hundred yards down the hill
and within easy range and al