ds, with not the semblance
of a trail to guide me; and I knew not whether I was riding in the right
direction. I ought rather to say that I knew the contrary--else I must
long before have reached the clearings around the village.

Without much reflection, I turned in a new direction, and rode for some
time without striking a trail. This led me once more into doubt, and I
made head back again, but still without success. I was in a
forest-plain, but I could find no path leading anywhere; and amid the
underwood of palmettoes I could not see any great distance around me.
Beyond a question, I had strayed far out of my way.

At an early hour of the day, this would have given me little concern;
but the sun had now set, and already under the shadow of the
moss-covered trees, it was nearly dark. Night would be down in a few
minutes, and in all probability I should be obliged to spend it in the
forest--by no means an agreeable prospect, and the less so that I was
thinly clad and hungry. True, I might pass some hours in sweet
reflection upon the pleasant incident of the day--I might dream rosy
dreams--but, alas! the soul is sadly under the influence of the body;
the spiritual must ever yield to the physical, and even love itself
becomes a victim to the vulgar appetite of hunger.

I began to fear that, after all, I should have but a sorry night of it.
I should be too hungry to think; too cold either to sleep or dream;
besides, I was likely to get wet to the shirt--as the rain had commenced
falling in large heavy drops.

After another unsuccessful effort to strike a trail, I pulled up and sat
listening. My eyes would no longer avail me; perhaps my ears might do
better service.

And so it chanced. The report of a rifle reached them, apparently fired
some hundred yards off in the woods.

Considering that I was upon hostile ground, such a sound might have
caused me alarm; but I knew from the sharp whip-like crack that the
piece was a hunter's rifle, and no Mexican ever handled a gun of that
kind. Moreover, I had heard, closely following upon the shot, a dull
concussion, as of some heavy body dropped from a high elevation to the
ground. I was hunter enough to know the signification of this sound.
It was the game--bird or beast--that had fallen from a tree.

An American must have fired that shot; but who? There were only three
or four of the rangers who carried the hunter-rifle--a very different
weapon from the "regulat