pect our Indian friends at any
moment. Mount, lad, and Heaven preserve you!'

Dugald hardly waited to say another word. He saw to the revolvers in his
saddle-bows, slung his rifle over his shoulder, sprang to the saddle, and
had disappeared like a flash.

And now we had but to wait the turn of events--turn how they might.

* * * * *

Dugald told us afterwards that during that memorable ride to the
_estancia_ he felt as if the beast beneath him was a winged horse instead
of his own old-fashioned and affectionate mule. Perhaps it was fear that
lent him such speed, and possibly it was fear transmitted even from his
rider. Times without number since we had come out to our new home in the
Silver West my brother had shown what sort of stuff he was made of, but a
ride like this is trying to a heart like oak or nerves like steel, and a
young man must be destitute of soul itself not to feel fear on such an
occasion. Besides, the very fact of flying from unseen foes adds to the
terror.

Down through the cactus jungle he went, galloping in and out and out and
in, himself hardly knowing the road, trusting everything to the sagacity
of the wondrous mule. Oftentimes when returning from a day on the hills,
tired and weary, he had thought the way through this strange green
bushland interminably long; but now, fleetly though he was speeding on, he
thought it would never, never end, that he would never, never come out
into the open braeland, and see, miles away beneath him, the twinkling
lights of the _estancia_. Many an anxious glance, too, did he cast around
him or into the gloomiest shades of the jungle, more than once imagining
he saw dusky figures therein with long spears ready to launch at him.

He is out at last, however; but the path is now loose and rough and stony.
After riding for some hundred yards he has to cut across at right angles
to the jungle he has left. To his horror, a dozen armed Indians at that
very moment leave the cactus, and with levelled spears and wild shouts
dash onward to intercept him. This is indeed a ride for life, for to his
immediate left is a precipice full twenty feet in height. He must gain the
end of this before he can put even a yard of actual distance betwixt
himself and the savages who are thirsting for his life. More than once he
has half made up his mind to dare the leap, but the venture is far too
great.

Nearer and nearer sweep the Indians. Du