There
hung in the heavy air a dull, low rumble as of thunder in the far-off
mountains. There seemed a faint quiver and tremor of the soil. Was
there distant earthquake?

Suddenly a wild yell, a scream from Moreno's buck-board, a
half-stifled shriek from the white-covered wagon. The man in blue
leaped forth and made a mad dash for the nearest riderless horse.
Whips cracked and bit and stung. The maddened mules flew at their
collars and tore away, the wagons bounding after them, and Pasqual
Morales, thrusting forth his head to learn the cause of all the panic,
grabbed the revolver at his belt with one fierce curse.

"_Carajo!_"

VIII.

Whatever might have been his other moral attributes, Pasqual Morales
had borne a name for desperate courage that seemed justified in this
supreme moment of surprise and stampede. What he saw as he leaned out
of the bounding vehicle was certainly enough to disgust a bandit and
demoralize many a leader. Scattering like chaff before the gale his
followers were scudding out across the desert, every man for himself,
as though the very devil were in pursuit of each individual member of
the gang. Eight or ten at least, spurring, lashing their horses to the
top of their speed, were already far beyond reach of his voice. Close
at hand, however, six or seven of the fellows, desperadoes of the
first water, had unslung their Henry rifles and, blazing away for all
they were worth, showed evidence of a determination to die game.
Behind them, screaming at the tops of their shrill, strident voices,
Senora Moreno and her daughter were clinging stoutly to the iron rail
of their seats as the buck-board was whirled and dashed across the
plain. Already both the wounded men had been flung helplessly out
upon the sands, and, even as he looked, the off fore wheel struck a
stout cactus stump; flew into fragments; the tire rolled off in one
direction, and Moreno's luckless family shot, comet-like, into space
and fetched up shrieking in the midst of a plentiful crop of thorns
and spines. The husband and father, gazing upon the incident from over
his shoulder and afar, blessed the saints for their beneficence in
having landed his loved ones on soft soil instead of among the jagged
rocks across the plain. But for himself the sooner he reached the
rocks the better. A tall Gringo, who cast aside a dark-blue blouse as
he rode, stooping low over his horse's neck, seemed bent on racing the
late ranch-owner to th