him, and whispered:

"This is one of Merriman's men."

I knelt beside him and tried, in my clumsy way, to bind his wound, and
help him back to life. But 'twas plain we were all too late for that.
He lay gasping in my arms, his eyes, already glazed, looking vacantly
skyward, and his arms feebly tossing in his battle for breath. Twas no
time for questions. I ventured but one:

"Where is O'Neill's daughter?" I asked in his ear.

He turned his head and stopped his panting for a moment.

"I could not save her," he gasped; "Merrim--" and here he fell back in
my arms a dead man.

We covered him hastily with the fallen leaves, and, taking his horse for
our guide's use, spurred grimly on.

There was no doubt now. The villain's plot had succeeded only too well,
and the fair innocents were already delivered over to his clutches.

At a little cluster of houses in the valley we halted a moment longer.

"Has a troop passed this way?" asked our guide of a cow-herd.

"Surely," said he, "they will scarce be over the hill by now."

"Carried they two women in their company?"

He laughed and said no.

"Have not two women been carried this way lately?"

"I'll be hanged if there was a sign of a woman," said he.

We looked blank at one another. The fellow seemed to speak true. Yet
his story agreed not with that of the dying man.

There was naught but to spur on, and by all means come level with the
villain, wherever he was.

As we commenced the steep ascent, we could discern the moving figures of
horsemen on the skyline above--as it seemed to us, in two bands, one of
which suddenly disappeared on the other side, while the other, numbering
some half-dozen men, made southward along the ridge. As we came higher
we saw these last still there, moving hurriedly to and fro, as though
seeking what they found not. It could hardly be us they looked for, for
their faces were set southward, nor was it till we came within a mile of
where they stood that they turned and suddenly perceived us. Then they
too vanished below the skyline and we lost them.

By the time we reached the ridge top, the first party was clattering far
down the plain, raising a cloud of dust at their heels, and, as it
seemed, pushing on with all speed to their journey's end.

Of the other party for a while we saw nothing, till presently our guide
pointed to them as they stole from out a wood below us and suddenly
broke into a canter in a southward direct