of
the glade to a point nearly opposite, in order to get a more direct view
of the sleeping man. What a diabolical expression of alternate hate
and triumph passed over his countenance! Here was the scoundrel who had
escaped from the presidio. After three years, when hope of ever finding
him again had died out, when, except for the depredations continually
taking place at the mission and presidio, every one would have declared
Pomponio was dead of the wounds he had inflicted on himself, that he,
Pablo, the youngest soldier at the presidio, when out hunting, and with
no thought of enemies near, should find the miscreant, asleep and in his
power! This would advance him in the good graces of the commandant.

There was no time to lose. Pomponio might awake at any moment; his
friends in the forest might return on the instant. He raised his musket
and took long and steady aim at the Indian. There was a report that
raised the echoes. With lightning speed the soldier reloaded, and then
cautiously drew nearer; but there was no need of apprehension from
Pomponio. He was dead--shot through the heart. The soldier gazed at the
inanimate form, at the bullet-hole in his breast, from which the blood
was trickling, and at the poor mutilated feet. Did a glimmer of pity
stir in his heart? It were hard to say. Yet, as he stood there looking
down at his work, perhaps there was a little feeling of sorrow for the
fate of his fellow man, coupled with a touch of shame at his own unmanly
act in thus murdering his sleeping foe, criminal though he was, and
richly deserving death. But he had scant time for reflection. The noise
of men approaching was heard in the forest. Pomponio's friends would be
here in an instant. He must go at once. He slipped away among the trees
in the direction from which he had come, and vanished. A moment later
four Indians appeared at the point where the soldier had stood when he
fired. Their first glance at Pomponio revealed to them the meaning of
the shot they had heard.

Pomponio was buried that night, secretly and in profound silence. His
comrades, determined his enemies should never find his grave and body,
bore it into the deepest recesses of the forest, and there interred it,
afterward removing all trace of any disturbance of the earth covering
it. There they left him, at rest, his little part in life's drama ended.

Pablo's story of his killing Pomponio was not believed when he told it
at the mission and the pre