trains! There's man or beast among those
black-jacks--both I take it."

"Looks like, masser."

"Yes; I think we'll there find what we're searching for. Strange, too,
his making no show. I can't see sign of a movement."

"No more I."

"Asleep, perhaps? It won't do for us to go any nearer, till sure. He's
had the advantage of me too often before. I can't afford giving it
again. Ha! what's that?"

The dog has suddenly slewed round, and sniffs in the opposite direction.
Clancy and Jupe, turning at the same time, see that which draws their
thoughts from Richard Darke, driving him altogether out of their minds.

Their faces are turned towards the east, where the Aurora reddens the
sky, and against its bright background several horsemen are seen _en
silhouette_, their number each instant increasing. Some are already
visible from crown to hoof; others show only to the shoulders; while the
heads of others can just be distinguished surmounting the crest of the
cliff. In the spectacle there is no mystery, nor anything that needs
explanation. Too well does Charles Clancy comprehend. A troop of
mounted men approaching up the pass, to all appearance Indians,
returning spoil-laden from a raid on some frontier settlement. But in
reality white men, outlawed desperadoes, the band of Jim Borlasse, long
notorious throughout South-Western Texas.

One by one, they ascend _en echelon_, as fiends through a stage-trap in
some theatric scene, showing faces quite as satanic. Each, on arriving
at the summit, rides into line alongside their leader, already up and
halted. And on they come, till nineteen can be counted upon the plain.

Clancy does not care to count them. There could be nothing gained by
that. He sees there are enough to make resistance idle. To attempt it
were madness.

And must he submit? There seems no alternative.

There is for all that; one he is aware of--flight. His horse is strong
and swift. For both these qualities originally chosen, and later
designed to be used for a special purpose--pursuit. Is the noble animal
now to be tried in a way never intended--retreat?

Although that dark frowning phalanx, at the summit of the pass, would
seem to answer "yes," Clancy determines "no." Of himself he could still
escape--and easily. In a stretch over that smooth plain, not a horse in
their troop would stand the slightest chance to come up with him, and he
could soon leave all out of sight. But then,