ble. The
ground was rough and uneven and the animals dropped to a walk.
Sometimes the course led around boulders, through sparse growths of
cedar, beside brawling torrents, two of which they were compelled to
ford, where it was hard for their animals to keep their feet.

"Last fall," remarked the guide, at the most difficult of these
passages, "I had to wait two days before I dared try to cross with
Hercules and one of the other mules."

His companions nodded their heads but made no other answer. They were
not in the mood for talking.

They were now making their way through a canyon similar to Dead Man's
Gulch, with rents and yawning ravines opening on the right and left,
before which the party might have halted in perplexity, had it been in
the night time. But the path showed plainly and the familiarity of the
guide prevented any mistake on his part.

Adams had intimated that by a certain line of procedure the watchful
fugitives could be prevented from discovering the approach of the
pursuers until too late to escape them. In counting upon his ability
to do this, he overestimated his skill, for the task was clearly
impossible, and it was because of his efforts in that direction that
he made a serious blunder. He had crossed for the third time a stream
which was shallow, and, upon reaching the opposite bank, where the
ground was moist and soft, he reined up with an exclamation of
impatience.

"What's the matter?" asked Captain Dawson, in the same mood.

"We've passed 'em," was the reply; "they're somewhere behind us."

"How far?"

"That remains to be found out, but I don't think it's a great
distance."

The captain angrily wheeled his horse and re-entered the stream.

"If they don't get away, it won't be our fault," was his ungracious
comment; "we have done little else than throw away our chances from
the first."

The guide made no response, and the next minute the four were
retracing their course, their animals at a walk, and all scanning the
rocks on either hand as they passed them.

It was clear by this time that the fugitives held one important
advantage over their pursuers. The route that they were following was
so devious and so varied in its nature, that only at rare intervals
could it be traced with the eye for a quarter or half a mile. Certain
of pursuit, Lieutenant Russell and his companion would be constantly
on the lookout for it. They were more likely, therefore, to discover
the horsemen th