de depression
of the ground, the bottom of which was reached by circular terraces.
Down here were a few more of the round rocks. Amid these rocks lay a
number of corpses. They counted five.

They were the bodies of young men, smartly dressed and wearing boots
and spurs. Four had been killed by bullets, the fifth by a stab in the
back between the shoulders.

Simon and Dolores looked at each other and then each continued in
independent search.

On the sand lay bridles and girth, two nosebags full of oats,
half-emptied meat-tins, unrolled blankets and a spirit-stove.

The victims' pockets had been ransacked. Nevertheless, Simon found in
a waistcoat a sheet of paper bearing a list of ten names--Paul
Cormier, Armand Darnaud, etc.--headed by this note:

"Foret-d'Eu Hunt."

Dolores explored the immediate surroundings. The clues which she thus
obtained and the facts discovered by Simon enabled them to reconstruct
the tragedy exactly. The horsemen, all members of a Norman hunt,
camping on this spot two nights before, had been surprised in the
morning by Rolleston's gang and the greater number massacred.

With such men as Rolleston and his followers, the attack had
inevitably ended in a thorough loot, but its main object had been the
theft of the horses. When these had been taken after a fight, the
robbers had made off at a gallop.

"There are only five bodies," said Dolores, "and there are ten names
on the list. Where are the other five riders?"

"Scattered," said Simon, "wounded, dying, anything. I daresay we
should find them by searching round? But how can we? Have we the right
to delay, when the safety of Miss Bakefield and her father is at
stake? Think, Dolores: Rolleston has more than thirty hours' start of
us and he and his men are mounted on excellent horses, while we. . . .
And then where are we to catch them?"

He clenched his fists with rage:

"Oh, if I only knew where this fountain of gold was! How far from it
are we? A day's march? Two days'? It's horrible to know nothing, to go
forward at random, in this accursed country!"

CHAPTER V

THE CHIEF'S REWARD

During the next two hours they saw, in the distance, three more
corpses. Frequent shots were fired, but whence they did not know.
Single prowlers were becoming rare; they encountered rather groups
consisting of men of all classes and nationalities, who had joined for
purposes of defence. But quarrels broke out within these groups, the
mom