move a hand; she could not tell where her hands were. Then
she felt the touch of soft leather. She saw a high-topped Mexican boot,
wearing a huge silver spur, and the reeking flank and legs of a horse,
and a dusty, narrow trail. Soon a kind of red darkness veiled her eyes,
her head swam, and she felt motion and pain only dully.

After what seemed a thousand weary hours some one lifted her from the
horse and laid her upon the ground, where, gradually, as the blood
left her head and she could see, she began to get the right relation of
things.

She lay in a sparse grove of firs, and the shadows told of late
afternoon. She smelled wood smoke, and she heard the sharp crunch of
horses' teeth nipping grass. Voices caused her to turn her face. A group
of men stood and sat round a camp-fire eating like wolves. The looks of
her captors made Madeline close her eyes, and the fascination, the
fear they roused in her made her open them again. Mostly they were
thin-bodied, thin-bearded Mexicans, black and haggard and starved.
Whatever they might be, they surely were hunger-stricken and squalid.
Not one had a coat. A few had scarfs. Some wore belts in which were
scattered cartridges. Only a few had guns, and these were of diverse
patterns. Madeline could see no packs, no blankets, and only a few
cooking-utensils, all battered and blackened. Her eyes fastened upon
men she believed were white men; but it was from their features and not
their color that she judged. Once she had seen a band of nomad robbers
in the Sahara, and somehow was reminded of them by this motley outlaw
troop.

They divided attention between the satisfying of ravenous appetites
and a vigilant watching down the forest aisles. They expected some one,
Madeline thought, and, manifestly, if it were a pursuing posse, they
did not show anxiety. She could not understand more than a word here
and there that they uttered. Presently, however, the name of Don Carlos
revived keen curiosity in her and realization of her situation, and then
once more dread possessed her breast.

A low exclamation and a sweep of arm from one of the guerrillas caused
the whole band to wheel and concentrate their attention in the opposite
direction. They heard something. They saw some one. Grimy hands sought
weapons, and then every man stiffened. Madeline saw what hunted men
looked like at the moment of discovery, and the sight was terrible. She
closed her eyes, sick with what she saw, fearful of