t duly looked to. Its state of firmness was felt,
its edge examined. Both appeared to be satisfactory, so the piece was
once more brought to its rest in the fork of the branch.

The cibolero was not the man to trust to blind chance. Like all of his
calling, he believed in the wisdom of precautions. No wonder he adopted
them so minutely in the present instance. The neglect of any one of
them might be fatal to him. The flashing of that rifle might cost him
his life! No wonder he was particular about the set of his flint, and
the dryness of his powder.

The position he occupied was well chosen. It gave him a view of the
whole glade, and no object as large as a cat could enter the opening
without being seen by him.

Silently he sat gazing around the circle of green shrubbery--silently
and anxiously--for the space of nearly an hour.

His patient vigil was at length rewarded. He saw the yellow face as it
peered from the underwood, and for a moment hesitated about firing at it
then. He had even taken sight upon it, when it was drawn back!

A little longer he waited--till the mulatto, rising to his knees,
offered his face full in the blazing light. At that moment his finger
pressed the trigger, and his unerring bullet passed through the brain of
his treacherous foeman!

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE.

The zambo had disappeared in the underwood almost at the same instant
that Carlos had mounted and galloped out through the avenue. Not a
living creature remained in the glade.

The huge body lay with arms outstretched, one of them actually across
the blazing pile! Its weight, pressing down the faggots, half-obscured
their light. Enough there was to exhibit the ghastly face mottled with
washes of crimson. There was no motion in either body or limbs--no more
than in that of the counterfeit form that was near. Dead was the yellow
hunter--dead! The hot flame that licked his arm, preparing to devour
it, gave him no pain. Fire stirs not the dead!

Where were the others? They had gone off in directions nearly opposite!
Were they flying from each other?

The zambo had gone back in the same direction whence he had come. He
had gone in a very different manner though. After disappearing behind
the leafy screen, he had not halted, but rushed on like one terrified
beyond the power of controlling himself. The cracking of dead sticks,
and the loud rustling among the bushes, told that he was pressing
through the grove in