exhausted their spirits as well as their strength, and left them
incapable of the furious activity necessary in a cavalry battle. The most
remarkable proof of their physical and moral debilitation was that in all
this melee not more than a dozen of them had discharged an arrow.

If they would not attack they must retreat, and that speedily. At fifty
yards' range, armed only with bows and spears, they were at the mercy of
riflemen and could stand only to be slaughtered. There was a hasty flight,
scurrying zigzag, right and left, rearing and plunging, spurring the last
caper out of their mustangs, the whole troop spreading widely, a hundred
marks and no good one. Nevertheless Texas Smith's miraculous aim brought
down first a warrior and then a horse.

By the time the Apaches were out of range the emigrants were well up the
slope of the hill which occupied the extreme elbow of the bend in the
river. It was a bluff or butte of limestone which innumerable years had
converted into marl, and for the most part into earth. A thin turf covered
it; here and there were thickets; more rarely trees. Presently some one
remarked that the sides were terraced. It was true; there were the narrow
flats of soil which had once been gardens; there too were the supporting
walls, more or less ruinous. Curious eyes now turned toward the seeming
mound on the summit, querying whether it might not be the remains of an
antique pueblo.

At this instant Clara uttered a cry of anxiety, "Where is Pepita?"

The girl was gone; a hasty looking about showed that; but whither? Alas!
the only solution to this enigma must be the horrible word, "Apaches." It
seemed the strangest thing conceivable; one moment with the party, and the
next vanished; one moment safe, and the next dead or doomed. Of course the
kidnapping must have been accomplished during the frenzied riot in the
stream, when the two bands were disentangling amid an uproar of plungings,
yells, and musket shots. The girl had probably been stunned by a blow, and
then either left to float down the brook or dragged off by some muscular
warrior.

There was a halt, an eager and prolonged lookout over the plain, a
scanning of the now distant Indians through field glasses. Then slowly and
sadly the train resumed its march and mounted to the summit of the butte.

Here, in this land of marvels, there was a new marvel. Incredible as the
thing seemed, so incredible that they had not at first believed their