E HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE GUERILLA.

Mine were anything but agreeable. I was pained and puzzled. I was
pained to think that _she_--dearer to me than life--was thus exposed to
the dangers that surrounded us. It was her sister that had occupied the
other hammock.

"Are they alone? Are they prisoners in the hands of these half-robbers?
May not their hospitality to us have brought them under proscription?
And are they not being carried--father, mother, and all--before some
tribunal? Or are they travelling for protection with this band--
protection against the less scrupulous robbers that infest the country?"

It was not uncommon upon the Rio Grande, when rich families journeyed
from point to point, to pay for an escort of this sort. This may
elucidate--.

"But I tell yez I did hear a crack; and, be my sowl! it was the
sargint's rifle, or I've lost me sinses intirely."

"What is it?" I asked, attracted to the conversation of my comrades.

"Chane says he heard a shot, and thinks it was Lincoln's," answered
Clayley.

"His gun has a quare sound, Captain," said the Irishman, appealing to
me. "It's diffirint intirely from a Mexican piece, and not like our own
nayther. It's a way he has in loadin' it."

"Well--what of that?"

"Why, Raowl says one of them axed him who fired. Now, I heerd a shot,
for my ear was close till the door here. It was beyant like; but I cud
swear upon the blissed crass it was ayther the sargint's rifle or
another as like it as two pays."

"It is very strange!" I muttered, half in soliloquy, for the same
thought had occurred to myself.

"I saw the boy, Captain," said Raoul; "I saw him crossing when they
opened the door."

"The boy!--what boy?" I asked.

"The same we brought out of the town."

"Ha! Narcisso!--you saw him?"

"Yes; and, if I'm not mistaken, the white mule that the old gentleman
rode to camp. I think that the family is with the guerilla, and that
accounts for our being still alive."

A new light flashed upon me. In the incidents of the last twenty hours
I had never once thought of Narcisso. Now all was clear--clear as
daylight. The zambo whom Lincoln had killed--poor victim!--was our
friend, sent to warn us of danger; the dagger, Narcisso's--a token for
us to trust him. The soft voice--the small hand thrust under the
tapojo--yes, all were Narcisso's!

A web of mystery was torn to shreds in a single moment. The truth did
not yield gratification. No--but th