safe enough, if you don't try to save the plunder."

The unladen mules, now bearing the men on their backs, had disappeared.
The guide washed his hands of the whole affair, despite the fact that
his hands were upraised. He whistled to his horse, and marched up the
trail for a hundred yards or so, still without lowering his arms, then
sprang into the saddle, fading out of sight in the direction his men
had taken. Stranleigh sat on his horse, apparently the sole inhabitant
of a lonely world.

"That comes of paying in advance," he muttered, looking round at his
abandoned luggage. Then it struck him as ridiculous that he was enacting
the part of an equestrian statue, with his arm raised aloft. Still, he
remembered enough of the pernicious literature that had lent enchantment
to his early days, to know that in certain circumstances the holding up
of hands was a safeguard not to be neglected, so he lowered his right
hand, and took in it the forefinger of his left, and thus raised both
arms over his head, turning round in the saddle to face the direction
from whence the shots had come. Then he released the forefinger, and
allowed the left arm to drop as if it had been a semaphore. He winced
under the pain that this pantomime cost him, then in a loud voice he
called out:

"If there is anyone within hearing, I beg to inform him that I am
wounded slightly; that I carry no firearms; that my escort has vanished,
and that I'm going to the house down yonder to have my injury looked
after. Now's the opportunity for a parley, if he wants it."

He waited for some moments, but there was no response, then he gathered
up the reins, and quite unmolested proceeded down the declivity until he
came to the homestead.

The place appeared to be deserted, and for the first time it crossed
Stranleigh's mind that perhaps the New York lawyer had sent him on this
expedition as a sort of practical joke. He couldn't discover where the
humour of it came in, but perhaps that might be the density with which
his countrymen were universally credited. Nevertheless, he determined to
follow the adventure to an end, and slipped from his horse, making an
ineffectual attempt to fasten the bridle rein to a rail of the fence
that surrounded the habitation. The horse began placidly to crop the
grass, so he let it go at that, and advancing to the front door,
knocked.

Presently the door was opened by an elderly woman of benign appearance,
who nevertheless reg