or his own horseflesh before that, and he had
always felt it a sort of murder. He did not look at Marty's face as he
carefully guided his wavering steps into the thicket and the presence
of the suffering Comanche, where one look sufficed his master.

"Oh, you poor fellow!"

For an instant the tall head stooped to the level of the struggling
animal, and a strange, expressive look passed between the great equine
eyes and the misty ones of the man. Then Marty's hand went swiftly
around to his pocket, there was the click of a weapon, a flash and
report, and Comanche moved no more.

More shaken and ill from this deed than from his terrible fall, Marty
sat long in silence by Ephraim's side beneath the eucalyptus trees;
then suddenly rousing, exclaimed:

"Now, to find out the cause!"

It was not far to seek, though difficult to understand. Of all men in
that countryside, gay, big-hearted George Cromarty had most friends
and fewest enemies. He took life lightly, merrily, with a good word
for the virtues of others and silence for their vices; yet there
before them, unmistakably plain, was the trap that had been set for
his life. A pit had been dug across the whole width of the road,
shallow, indeed, but sufficiently deep to throw any horse passing over
it. Its top had been screened with interlacing twigs, over which had
been scattered soil and dust enough to hide them. One who rode with
his eyes on the ground, as Antonio used, might easily, perhaps, have
discovered the fiendish work; but he who rode with head upraised and
his gaze on the distance would ride to his ruin as Marty had done. To
make the treachery more secure, some sprays of wild grapes had been
tightly stretched beneath the whole, and this showed a deliberation of
evil that turned Ephraim sick, but the other man furious.

"Who did that will pay the price! I swear it!" he cried.

"It surely was meant for a Sobrante man, for they're few besides who
ride this way," answered "Forty-niner," thoughtfully. "And, Atlantic!
Here's the mail pouch! Maybe 'twas robbery, pure and simple. Was it a
money day, for supplies or such?"

"Reckon it was. The mistress herself locked and gave the bag to me,
bidding me be careful. As if I was ever careless; but there was one
letter in it I heard about, that the little captain wrote to Ninian
Sharp. Wrote herself, an invite to the Christmas doings. Try it."

Examination proved that the bag had been tampered with, though the
lock