the horses out.

These are discovered in a strip of meadow near by, one only missing. It
is that the chief had seized from their white prisoner, and
appropriated. The yellow one has replevined it!

The ghastly spectacle in the tent gives them no horror. They are too
hardened for that. But it makes them feel, notwithstanding; first
anger, soon succeeded by apprehension. The dullest brute in the band
has some perception of danger as its consequence. Hitherto their
security has depended on keeping up their incognito by disguises, and
the secrecy of their camping place. Here is a prisoner escaped, who
knows all; can tell about their travesties; guide a pursuing party to
the spot! They must remain no longer there.

Borlasse recognising the necessity for a change of programme, summons
his following around him.

"Boys!" he says, "I needn't point out to ye that this ugly business puts
us in a bit o' a fix. We've got to clear out o' hyar right quick. I
reckon our best way 'll be to make tracks for San Antone, an' thar
scatter. Even then, we won't be too safe, if yellow skin turns up to
tell his story about us. Lucky a nigger's testymony don't count for
much in a Texan court; an' thar's still a chance to make it count for
nothin' by our knocking him on the head."

All look surprised, their glances interrogating "How?"

"I see you don't understan' me," pursues Borlasse in explanation. "It's
easy enough; but we must mount at once, an' make after him. He won't so
readily find his way acrosst the cut-rock plain. An' I tell yez, boys,
it's our only chance."

There are dissenting voices. Some urge the danger of going back that
way. They may meet the outraged settlers.

"No fear of them yet," argues the chief, "but there will be if the
nigger meets them. We needn't go on to the San Saba. If we don't
overtake him 'fore reachin' the cottonwood, we'll hev' to let him slide.
Then we can hurry back hyar, an' go down the creek to the Colorado."

The course counselled, seeming best, is decided on.

Hastily saddling their horses, and stowing the plunder in a place where
it will be safe till their return, they mount, and start off for the
upper plain.

Silence again reigns around the deserted camp; no human voice there--no
sound, save the calling of the wild turkeys, that cannot awake that
ghastly sleeper.

At the same hour, almost the very moment, when Borlasse and his
freebooters, ascending from Coyote Creek,