e and his comrades had been watching the Rio Grande to see
whether the Mexicans had crossed, and now he at least knew it.

He waited patiently three or four hours longer, until the wind died and
the fall of snow ceased, when he mounted his horse and rode out of the
dip. The wind suddenly sprang up again in about fifteen minutes, but
now it blew from the south and was warm. The darkness thinned away as
the moon and stars came out in a perfect sky of southern blue. The
temperature rose many degrees in an hour and Ned knew that the snow
would melt fast. All danger of freezing was past, but he was as hungry
as a bear and tired to death.

He unwrapped the blankets from his body, folded them again in a small
package which he made fast to his saddle, and once more stroked the nose
of his horse.

"Good Old Jack," he murmured--he had called him Old Jack after Andrew
Jackson, then a mighty hero of the south and west, "you passed through
the ordeal and never moved, like the silent gentleman that you are."

Old Jack whinnied ever so softly, and rubbed his nose against the boy's
coat sleeve. Ned mounted him and rode out of the dip, pausing at the top
of the swell for a long look in every direction. The night was now
peaceful and there was no noise, save for the warm wind that blew out of
the south with a gentle sighing sound almost like the note of music.
Trickles of water from the snow, already melting, ran down the crests.
Lighter and lighter grew the sky. The moon seemed to Ned to be poised
directly overhead, and close by. New stars were springing out as the
last clouds floated away.

Ned sought shelter, warmth and a place in which to sleep, and to secure
these three he felt that he must seek timber. The scouts whom he had
seen were probably the only Mexicans north of the Rio Grande, and, as he
believed, there was not one chance in a thousand of meeting such enemies
again. If he should be so lucky as to find shelter he would sleep there
without fear.

He rode almost due north for more than two hours, seeing patches of
chaparral on both right and left. But, grown fastidious now and not
thinking them sufficient for his purpose, he continued his northern
course. Old Jack's feet made a deep sighing sound as they sank in the
snow, and now there was water everywhere as that soft but conquering
south wind blew steadily over the plain.

When he saw a growth of timber rising high and dark upon a swell he
believed that he had found