to say, then, that my love is `all in my eye'?"

"Exactly so, in a literal sense. I do not think it has reached your
heart, else you would not be thinking of your supper. Now, I could go
for days without food--suffer any hardship; but, no--you cannot
understand this."

"I confess not. I am too hungry."

"You could forget--nay, I should not be surprised if you have already
forgotten--all but the fact that your mistress is a blonde, with bright
golden hair. Is it not so?"

"I confess, Captain, that I should make but a poor portrait of her from
memory."

"And, were I a painter, I could throw _her_ features upon the canvas as
truly as if they were before me. I see her face outlined upon these
broad leaves--her dark eyes burning in the flash of the cocuyo--her long
black hair drooping from the feathery fringes of the palm--and her--"

"Stop! You are dreaming, Captain! Her eyes are not dark--her hair is
not black."

"What! Her eyes not dark?--as ebony, or night!"

"Blue as a turquoise!"

"Black! What are you thinking of?"

"`Mary of the Light'."

"Oh, that is quite a different affair!" and my friend and I laughed
heartily at our mutual misconceptions.

We rode on, again relapsing into silence. The stillness of the night
was broken only by the heavy hoof bounding back from the hard turf, the
jingling of spurs, or the ringing of the iron scabbard as it struck
against the moving flanks of our horses.

We had crossed the sandy spur, with its chaparral of cactus and
mezquite, and were entering a gorge of heavy timber, when the practised
eye of Lincoln detected an object in the dark shadow of the woods, and
communicated the fact to me.

"Halt!" cried I, in a low voice.

The party reined up at the order. A rustling was heard in the bushes
ahead.

"_Quien viva_?" challenged Raoul, in the advance.

"_Un amigo_," (A friend), was the response.

I sprang forward to the side of Raoul and called out:

"_Acercate! acercate_!" (Come near!)

A figure moved out of the bushes, and approached.

"_Esta el Capitan_?" (Is it the captain?)

I recognised the guide given me by Don Cosme.

The Mexican approached, and handed me a small piece of paper. I rode
into an opening, and held it up to the moonlight; but the writing was in
pencil, and I could not make out a single letter.

"Try this, Clayley. Perhaps your eyes are better than mine."

"No," said Clayley, after examining the paper. "I can hardly see