to get the other ponies but some day I'll come back after Lane's
cache."

A half-hour later the Mexican guards appeared upon the scene, and
unbound Lane's unconscious form from the sahuaro, which the fire had
consumed to a foot of his bowed head. They deluged his face and back,
and bathed his tortured feet with the contents of their canteens, and
brought him back to life, but, alas! not to reason.

Six months later there limped out of Chihuahua hospital a discharged
patient, wry-necked, crook-backed, with drawn features, and hair and
beard streaked with gray. It was Dick Lane, restored to old physical
strength, so far as the distortion of his spine, caused by his torture,
permitted, and to the full possession of his mental faculties. He
mounted one of the captured ponies, and rode off with the proceeds of
the sales of the others in his pocket, to purchase provisions for a
return to his prospecting.

Before plunging into the wilderness he wrote a letter:

Chihuahua, Mexico

"Mr. John Payson,
"Sweetwater Ranch,
"Florence, Arizona Territory, U.S.A.

"Dear Jack: I have been sick and out of my head in the hospital here
for the last six months. Just about the time you all were expecting me
home, I had a run in with the Apaches. And who do you think was with
them? Buck McKee, the half-breed that I ran off the range two years
ago for tongue-slitting. After I had done for all the rest, he got me,
and--well, the story's too long to write. I rather think McKee has
made off with the gold I had cached just before the fight. I'm going
back to see, and if he did, I'll hustle around to find a buyer for one
of my claims. I don't want to sell my big mine, Jack. I tell you I
struck it rich!--but that story can wait till I get back. Your loan
can't, though, so expect to receive $3,000 by express some time before
I put in an appearance. I hope you got the mortgage renewed at the end
of the year. If my failure to show up then has caused you trouble,
you'll forgive me, old fellow, I know, under the circumstances. I'll
make it up to you. I owe you everything. You're the best friend a man
ever had. That's why I'm writing to you instead of to Uncle Jim, for I
want you to do me another friendly service. Just break it gently to
Echo Allen that I'm alive and well though pretty badly damaged by that
renegade McKee and tell her that it wasn't my fault I wasn't home the
day