ed well, _yegua--
yeguita_!" she adds, patting the mare upon the neck; "you shall have the
promised pinons--a whole _cuartilla_ of them."

Once more stepping to the front, she strikes off among the trees, along
a path which still inclines downward, though now in gentler slope.

Hamersley's brain is in a whirl. The strange scenes, things, thoughts,
and fancies are weaving weird spells around him; and once more he begins
to think that his senses have either forsaken or are forsaking him.

This time it is really so, for the long-protracted suffering--the waste
of blood and loss of strength--only spasmodically resuscitated by the
excitement of the strange encounter--is now being succeeded by a fever
of the brain, that is gradually depriving him of his reason.

He has a consciousness of riding on for some distance farther--under
trees, whose leafy boughs form an arcade over his head, shutting out the
sun. Soon after, all becomes suddenly luminous, as the mustang bears
him out into a clearing, with what appears a log-cabin in the centre.
He sees or fancies the forms of several men standing by its door; and as
the mare comes to a stop in their midst his fair conductor is heard
excitedly exclaiming,--

"_Hermano_! take hold of him! _Alerte! Alerte_!"

At this one of the men springs towards him; whether to be kind, or to
kill, he cannot tell. For before a hand is laid on him the strange
tableau fades from his sight; and death, with all its dark
obliviousness, seems to take possession of his soul.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

"SAVED BY AN ANGEL!"

The shadow of Walt Wilder is again projected over the Staked Plain, as
before, to a gigantic length. But this time westwardly, from a sun that
is rising instead of setting.

It is the morning after he parted with his disabled companion; and he is
now making back towards the spot where he had left the latter, the sun's
disc just appearing above the horizon, and shining straight upon his
back. Its rays illumine an object not seen before, which lends to
Walt's shadow a shape weird and fantastic. It is that of a giant, with
something sticking out on each side of his head that resembles a pair of
horns, or as if his neck was embraced by an ox-yoke, the tines tending
diagonally outwards.

On looking at Walt himself the singularity is at once understood. The
carcase of a deer lies transversely across his back, the legs of the
animal being fastened together so as to form a s