re falling in cataracts, does something to deaden
them. Only now and then there is the neigh of a horse, and
intermittently the bark of one of the bloodhounds, as if these animals
had yielded, but yet remain hostile to the intruders. They hear human
voices, too, but no shout following that of Chico, and no scream save
the one sent up by Conchita.

There is loud talk, a confusion of speakers, but no report of firearms.
This last is tranquillising. A shot at that moment heard by Hamersley
would give him more uneasiness than if the gun were aimed at himself.

"Thank God!" he gasps out, after a long spell of listening, "Miranda has
made no resistance. He's seen it would be no use, and has quietly
surrendered. I suppose it's all over now, and they are captives."

"Wal, better thet than they shed be corpses," is the consolatory
reflection of the hunter. "So long as thar's breath left in thar bodies
we kin hev hope, as I sayed arready. Let's keep up our hearts by
thinkin' o' the fix we war in atween the wagguns, an' arterwards thet
scrape in the cave. We kim clar out o' both in a way we mout call
mirakelous, an' we may yit git them clar in someat the same fashion.
'Slong's I've got my claws roun' the stock o' a good gun, wi' plenty o'
powder and lead, I ain't a-goin' to deespar. We've both got that,
tharfor niver say die!"

The hunter's quaint speech is encouraging; but for all, it does not
hinder him and his comrade from soon after returning to a condition of
despondency, if not actual despair.

A feeling which holds possession of them till the rising of the sun, and
on till it reaches meridian.

When the day breaks, with eyes anxiously scrutinising, they look down
into the valley. A mist hangs over the stream, caused by the spray of
its cataracts.

Lifting at length, there is displayed a scene not very different from
what they have been expecting.

Around the ranche they see horses picketed and soldiers moving among
them or standing in groups apart; in short, a picture of military life
in "country quarters."

Their point of view is too far off to identify individual forms or note
the exact action carried on. This last, left to conjecture, is filled
up by fancies of the most painful kind.

For long hours are they constrained to endure them--up to that of noon.
Then, the notes of a bugle, rising clear above the hissing of the
cascades, foretell a change in the spectacle. It is the call, "Boots
and sadd