background of
cliff.

Arrived in front of this solitary dwelling, he dismounts, and, drawing
aside the horse's skin which serves as a swing door, calls out:--

"Shebotha!"

Presently a woman appears in the opening--if woman she could be called.
For it is a hag of most repulsive appearance; her face half hidden by a
tangle of long hair, black, despite old age indicated by a skin
shrivelled and wrinkled as that of a chameleon. Add to this a pair of
dark grey eyes, deep sunken in their sockets, for all gleaming
brilliantly, and you have the countenance of Shebotha--sorceress of the
Tovas tribe--one of cast as sinister as ever presented itself in a
doorway.

She speaks not a word in answer to the friendly salutation of the
cacique; but stands silent in bent, obeisant attitude, with her skinny
arms crossed over her breast, as it waiting to hear what he would
further say. His words are by way of command:

"Shebotha! I've brought back with me a captive--a young girl of the
palefaces. You must take charge of her, and keep her here in your hut.
She's not yet come up, but will presently. So get things ready to
receive her."

Shebotha but bends lower, with an inclination of the head, to imply that
his instructions will be attended to. Then he adds--

"No one must see, or converse with her; at least, not for a time. And
you mustn't admit any one inside your _toldo_, except the witless white
creature, your slave. About him it don't signify. But keep out all
others, as I know you can. You understand me, Shebotha?"

She makes answer in the affirmative, but, as before, only by a nod.

"Enough!" is the young chief's satisfied rejoinder, as he vaults back
upon his horse, and rides off to meet the captive train, which he knows
must be now near.

That night, as for other nights and days succeeding, Francesca Halberger
has this horrid hag for a hostess, or rather the keeper of her prison;
since the unhappy girl is in reality kept and guarded as a prisoner.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

TASTE AFTER POWDER.

Long before daylight penetrates the interior of the cavern, or shows its
first streak on the sky outside, the trackers are up and active.

A hasty breakfast is prepared; but, as the mutton bone is now quite
bare, they have to fall back on another kind of flesh-meat, which the
provident Caspar has brought along. This is _charqui_, or as it is
called by English-speaking people "jerked beef;" in all likelihood a
sa