Hitherto Bull had always ridden on Lee’s right, but when the trail permitted two to ride abreast he now, with instinctive delicacy, yielded his old place to Gordon. In this order they rode along the flank of the mountain, their hoofs beating a dark tattoo to the lower rhythm of creaking leather, flapping holsters; rode on past the San Carlos trail, the Bowl forks, had almost reached the head of the ravine above Antonio’s fonda when Lee, who was riding ahead, reined in with an exclamation.

Out of the gloom that wrapped the plains below had burst a sudden glow which gave birth, as they gazed, to a flower of flame that quivered and swung under the breath of the night wind. It was too far away for them to see the buildings; but, clearly as though they were looking down upon it from the first rise, their minds filled in the picture; supplied the flames roaring through the Arboles patio, bursting from doors and windows, scaling the guard-house, running a scarlet race along the rows of adobes.

“My poor people!” Lee sat her horse and gazed.

The shock of realization is often less than anticipation; its finality strips away exaggeration. Down there everything Lee valued was going up in flames—her wardrobe, jewelry, girlish treasures; household effects and hacienda stores; that which she valued most of all, the trove of old Spanish manuscripts and letters, doubly dear because so intimately connected with her father’s memory. Surely a great loss! but if it flashed up in her mind, regret was instantly wiped out by consuming indignation—not at her personal loss; not that her loved home was being destroyed under her eyes; but at that which it stood for; the malice, ignorance, wantonness, irresponsibility which has lighted a thousand such fires, would light a thousand more, laying waste all Mexico with its cruelties and lusts. When Sliver’s voice broke in the darkness behind her his attempt at rude comfort came almost as a shock.

“Never mind, Lady-girl. They kain’t burn them yard-thick walls.”

“An’ we left word for the ancianos to drive the stock into the mountains,” Jake added. “Must ha’ b’en cl’ar away long before they got there.”

“It isn’t that.” She spoke so low that only Gordon caught her whisper. “My poor girls! I would give all, place and stock, to make sure they escaped.” As that bitter indignation resurged within her she added: “There’s only one thing left. We must—”

Bull’s heavy voice completed it for her,—“catch ’em before daylight.”

While the horses slid and slipped down the steep trail his voice rose above the scrape of hoofs, laying out his plan. After their long march the raiders would undoubtedly camp at Arboles! The fire proved one thing—they had broken open the store and drunk up the stock of aguardiente! At dawn they would be found stretched in swinish sleep. And then—

His surmise was reasonable, founded on probabilities, but subject to the change of circumstance. As they rode on down a red glow in the black bowels of the ravine grew into a fire that dyed a deeper chrome the yellow walls of the fonda. It also restored a little color into the bronze faces of a score of refugees from Arboles, women and children, herded together like sheep around its blaze.

When Lee rode into the firelight they gave tongue in a chorus of joy, apprehension, every shade of feeling from fear to relief. From their babble she gathered, first, that they had been warned by a peon who had run in from Lovell’s rancho; second, that the ancianos had driven the horses into the mountain pasture and scattered the cattle among the ravines. Finally, from out of their midst a lad was thrust forward to tell his tale.

He had been sent to hunt stragglers from the herds. Feeling tired, with that peon indolence which is not to be disturbed by mere rumors of raiders, he had curled up in a bunch of chaparral and gone to sleep. Awakened by voices, he had seen the raiders coming. Men of gigantic stature and evil visage his excited fancy painted them, and among them he recognized a peon who had run away to the wars after being whipped for some grossness by the seÑor Benson. So close did they pass, he heard them quarreling among themselves. They appeared to be tired and downcast over their poor luck in obtaining horses; and he, the boy, heard the renegade’s expressions of reassurance.

“Si, seÑores. A few miles more and you will rest with the women at Los Arboles. There we shall find the finest horses, bred by blooded stallions, fit for a general to ride. Or if they have run them away for safe-keeping, ’twill not serve, for I, Pedro Gonzales, know the secret pasture in the great Bowl.”

Flaming up under fresh fuel while the lad talked, the firelight showed the Three deep in reflection. The same thought was in their minds: a vivid mental picture of the raiders from Las Bocas ascending the precarious zigzags of the Bowl staircase. If these others could be caught in the same way? Jake’s remark expressed their joint conclusion.

“It ’u’d be a cinch!”

“Horses all tired out now, too,” Sliver added. “If anythin’ went wrong, we’d have no getaway. Not that I’d care, but we kain’t take no chances with Lady-girl.”

Bull’s word decided. He made his dispositions, sent the youth to sleep out on the plains and bring early warning of the raiders’ movements; posted other sentries at intervals. Finally, he saw first to the horses, that they were watered and fed and groomed; then to the serving of a meal.

He ate, but even his steady, methodical munching bespoke purpose, the conserving of strength for his ends. As he sat, after the meal, gazing into the fire, even Lee failed to discern much difference from his usual self. But after the others, refugees and all, lay wrapped in their serapes, dim, muffled figures under the red light of half a dozen fires, he still sat, a somber figure in black outline against the glow.

After Lee had cried herself to sleep he sat on. At midnight her awakening eyes showed him still there. When she awoke again he was gone—on the round of sentries. He returned before she fell asleep again and sat on, staring into the fire, an ominous figure fraught with danger.