death that awaited them.

"My God!" cried Sergeant Lee, "this is old Feeny,--and yet alive."

Together the two raised the senseless form, bore it out into the open
space, laid it gently beside their first discovery, and ran back for
the next, a big, heavy, bulky shape in loose and blood-stained
garments. It took all their strength to lug it forth. Then the
lieutenant bent by the side of the slowly recovering civilian.

"Are there any more we can reach?" he questioned eagerly, his heart
beating madly.

"No,--too late!--others were inside when the roof fell in. More
water,--more water!"

Sergeant Lee sprang to the _ollas_, gleaming there in the fire-light,
and brought back a brimming dipper, holding it to the poor fellow's
parched lips until he could drink no more, then slashing away the
thongs with which he was bound.

"This is Greaser work," he cried. "How could they have left you alive?
Where are Moreno's people? Who's done this, anyhow?"

"Pasqual Morales. Moreno was in it, too. 'Twas the paymaster they were
laying for; but they've killed Ned Harvey and got his sisters,--old
Harvey's children--from Tucson."

"What?" cried the officer, leaping to his feet. "Harvey's daughters
here?--here? Man, are you mad?"

"It's God's truth! Oh, if I had a drop of the whiskey that's being
burned in there! I'm nigh dead."

"Run to my saddle-bags, Lee; fetch that flask, quick; then call in the
men and send one back to hurry up the rest. Where have they gone? What
have they done with their captives?"

"God knows! I could hear them screaming and praying,--those poor
girls! Mullan and the pay-clerk picked up Feeny after he was stunned
and they rushed him back through here, where the paymaster had dragged
himself, to where you found him. That--that's the paymaster you've got
there. Then they tried to save a drunken soldier while all the gang
seemed crowding after the safe and the girls, but they were shot down
inside, and must have burned to death if they wasn't killed. Oh, God,
what a night!" And weak, unstrung, unmanned, the poor fellow sobbed
aloud.

At this instant there rode into the corral a couple of troopers.

"Lieutenant Drummond here?" cried one of them. "We've found a man out
on the plain to the southeast, gagged and bound. Shall we fetch him
in?"

"You go, Quinn, but get some one else to help you. Patterson, your
horse is fresh, gallop back on the trail. Tell Sergeant Meinecke to
come ahead for all he's worth