and, with his
arm comfortably and closely slung, Drummond lay impatient for the
coming of his men, impatient perhaps to hear a softer voice, to feel
again the light touch of slender fingers, yet in his weakness and
exhaustion dropping slowly off to sleep. All efforts to keep awake
proved vain. His heavy eyelids closed, and presently he was in
dreamland.

Meantime Sergeant Wing had busied himself in many a way. First he had
gone to loosen old Moreno's bonds,--enough, at least, to relieve his
pain yet hold him securely. The soldier sitting drowsily on the rock
beside the prisoner gladly accepted permission to put aside his
carbine and go to sleep.

"I'll watch him, Mat," said Wing. "You lie down there, Moreno, and see
to it that you make no effort to slip a knot while I'm at work here.
How far away is that ambulance now, Patterson?" he called to the man
on lookout.

"Halted down at the edge of the plain, sergeant. That's where they
struck water first, and I reckon they couldn't make up their minds to
come farther. I can make out one or two of the fellows coming back far
down the desert to the south. Horses played out probably."

"Anything to be seen across the valley along the trail we came?"

"Nothing, sir; not a puff of dust. But here's something I don't
understand--off here in the range south of us--well up towards the
top."

"What's that?" asked Wing, dropping the coil of lariat he held in his
hand and looking quickly up.

"Well, it's more like signal-smoke than anything else. Just exactly
such smoke as we have seen in the Chiricahua and Catarinas and ----
Well, just come up here with your field-glass, if you can, sergeant. I
believe there's an answer to it way down to the southeast,--t'other
side of the valley."

In an instant Wing turned. "Sorry for you, Senor Moreno," he grimly
muttered. "But as only two men are with me and both are otherwise
engaged, I'll have to secure you temporarily. It isn't pleasant, but
it serves you right."

In vain the Mexican pleaded and protested. A rawhide _riata_ was wound
and looped about him in a few scientific turns and he was left
reclining against the rock, conquered yet inwardly raging, while Wing
stole in to Drummond's rude couch, slipped the field-glass from its
case, then, with a longing look into the darker depths beyond, and a
moment's hesitation, he stepped to the projecting rock that seemed to
divide the cave into two apartments and called in lower tone, "Miss