round like madmen. El Zorro's _metier_
was at an end.

A more perfect "harbour of refuge" could not have been found in all
prairie-land. As Garey alleged, it "beat tree-timber all hollow!" A
little fortress, in fact, in which we might defy even twice the number
of our assailants--unless, indeed, they should wax desperately brave,
and try us hand to hand.

Our sudden disappearance had created a new sensation in their ranks.
From their shouts, we could tell that some of them regarded it with
feelings of wonder--perhaps with emotions of a still stronger kind. We
could hear the exclamations "_Carrai!" "Carrambo_!" with the phrase
"_los demonios_!" passing from mouth to mouth. Indeed, from the
position which they occupied, it must have appeared to them that we had
gone into the cliff--for the separation of the rock from the wall behind
it was not perceptible from the plain, else _we_ should have perceived
it as we rode forward.

If our enemies knew of this outlying boulder, it was strange they had
left the way open to so safe a retreat--strange, since it did not
correspond with the cunning they had otherwise given proofs of--and yet
stranger they should be ignorant of its existence. Most of them were
natives of this frontier, and must have frequently visited the mesa,
which was one of the "lions" of the district.

Perhaps they had never troubled their thoughts about it. There is no
people who take less interest in the rare features of their beautiful
country than the Mexicans. Nature charms them not. A Mexican dwelling
with a garden around it is a rarity--a lawn or a shrubbery is never
seen; but indeed nature has bounteously supplied them with all these.
They dwell amidst scenes of picturesque beauty; they gaze over green
savannas--down into deep barrancas--up to the snow-crowned summits of
mighty mountains--without experiencing one emotion of the sublime. A
tortured bull, a steel-galved cock, Roman candles, and the Chinese
wheel, are to them the sights of superior interest, and furnish them
with all their petty emotions. So is it with nations, as with men who
have passed the age of their strength, and reached the period of
senility and second childhood.

But there was another, and perhaps a better, reason why none of our
adversaries should be intimate with the locality. As my companions
alleged, the spot was a favourite halting-place of the Comanches--_they_
have an eye for the picturesque--but perhaps th