not yet yielded to despair.

All at once he started up, as if some thought, suddenly conceived, had
given him hopes. A new resolution seemed to have been taken.

"Yes!" he soliloquised, "I shall go to the grove--direct to the grove.
Ha! you bloodthirsty yellow-skin, I'll try your boasted skill. We shall
see--we shall see. Maybe you'll get your reward, but not that you are
counting upon. You have yet something to do before you take the scalp
of Carlos the cibolero!"

Muttering these words he turned his horse's head, renewed his hold of
the dog and the bridle, and set off across the plain.

He rode at a rapid pace, and without casting a look behind him. He
appeared to be in a hurry, though it could not be from fear of being
overtaken. No one was likely to come up with him, so long as he kept on
at such a pace.

He was silent, except now and then when he addressed some kind word to
the dog Cibolo, whose blood ran over his thighs, and down the flanks of
the horse. The poor brute was weak, and could no longer have kept his
feet.

"Patience, old friend!--patience!--you shall soon have rest from this
jolting."

In less than an hour he had reached the lone grove on the Pecos--the
same where he had lately parted with Antonio. Here he halted. It was
the goal of his journey. Within that grove he had resolved on passing
the remainder of the night, and, if not disturbed, the whole of the
following day.

The Pecos at this point, and for many miles above and below, ran between
low banks that rose vertically from the water. On both sides its
"bottom" was a smooth plain, extending for miles back, where it stepped
up to a higher level. It was nearly treeless. Scattered clumps grew at
distant intervals, and along its margin a slight fringing of willows.
This fringe was not continuous, but broken here and there by gaps,
through which the water might be seen. The timber clumps were composed
of cotton-wood trees and live-oak, with acacias forming an underwood,
and occasionally plants of cactus growing near.

These groves were so small, and so distant from each other, that they
did not intercept the general view of the surface, and a person
occupying one of them could see a horseman, or other large object, at a
great distance. A man concealed in them could not have been approached
by his enemy in daylight, if awake and watching. At night, of course,
it was different, and the security then afforded depended upon the