Soon after, they had descended to it; and in the midst of night, with a starry sky overhead, were traversing the level road upon which the broad wheel-tracks of rude country carts--_carretas_--told of the proximity of settlements. It was a country road, leading out from the foot-hills of the sierra to a crossing of the river, near the village of Tome, where it intersected with the main route of travel running from El Paso in the south through all the riverine towns of New Mexico.

Turning northward from Tome, the white robbers, late disguised as Indians, pursued their course towards the town of Albuquerque. Any one meeting them on the road would have mistaken them for a party of traders _en route_ from the Rio Abajo to the capital of Santa Fe.

But they went not so far. Albuquerque was the goal of their journey, though on arriving there--which they did a little after midnight--they made no stop in the town, nor any noise to disturb its inhabitants, at that hour asleep.

Pa.s.sing silently through the unpaved streets, they kept on a little farther. A large house or hacienda, tree shaded, and standing outside the suburbs, was the stopping place they were aiming at; and towards this they directed their course. There was a _mirador_ or belvidere upon the roof--the same beside which Colonel Miranda and his American guest, just twelve months before, had stood smoking cigars.

As then, there was a guard of soldiers within the covered entrance, with a sentry outside the gate. He was leaning against the postern, his form in the darkness just distinguishable against the grey-white of the wall.

"_Quien-viva_?" he hailed as the two hors.e.m.e.n rode up, the hoof-strokes startling him out of a half-drunken doze.

"_El Coronel-Commandante_!" responded the tall man in a tone that told of authority.

It proved to be countersign sufficient, the speaker's voice being instantly recognised.

The sentry, bringing his piece to the salute, permitted the hors.e.m.e.n to pa.s.s without further parley, as also the _atajo_ in their train, all entering and disappearing within the dark doorway, just as they had made entrance into the mouth of the mountain cavern.

While listening to the hoof-strokes of the animals ringing on the pavement of the _patio_ inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his _sueldo_ and rations?

He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned against the wall, and soon after succ.u.mbed to the state of semi-watchfulness from which the unexpected event had aroused him.

"Carrambo!" exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and gla.s.ses between them. "It's been a long, tedious tramp, hasn't it?

Well, we've not wasted our time, nor had our toil for nothing. Come, _teniente_, fill your gla.s.s again, and let us drink to our commercial adventure. Here's that in the disposal of our goods we may be as successful as in their purchase!"

Right merrily the lieutenant refilled his gla.s.s, and responded to the toast of his superior officer.

"I suspect, Roblez," continued the Colonel, "that you have been all the while wondering how I came to know about this caravan whose spoil is to enrich us--its route--the exact time of its arrival, the strength of its defenders--everything? You think our friend the Horned Lizard gave me all this information."

"No, I don't; since that could not well be. How was Horned Lizard to know himself--that is, in time to have sent word to you? In truth, _mio Coronel_, I am, as you say, in a quandary about all that. I cannot even guess at the explanation."

"This would give it to you, if you could read; but I know you cannot, _mio teniente_; your education has been sadly neglected. Never mind, I shall read it for you."

As the colonel was speaking he had taken from the drawer of a cabinet that stood close by a sheet of paper folded in the form of a letter. It was one, though it bore no postmark. For all that, it looked as if it had travelled far--perchance carried by hand. It had in truth come all the way across the prairies. Its superscription was:--

"El Coronel Miranda, Commandante del Distrito Militario de Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico."

Its contents, also in Spanish, translated read thus:--

"My dear Colonel Miranda,--I am about to carry out the promise made to you at our parting. I have my mercantile enterprise in a forward state of readiness for a start over the plains. My caravan will not be a large one, about six or seven waggons with less than a score of men; but the goods I take are valuable in an inverse ratio to their bulk-- designed for the `ricos' of your country. I intend taking departure from the frontier town of Van Buren, in the State of Arkansas, and shall go by a new route lately discovered by one of our prairie traders, that leads part way along the Canadian river, by you called `Rio de la Canada,' and skirting the great plain of the Llano Estacado at its upper end. This southern route makes us more independent of the season, so that I shall be able to travel in the fall. If nothing occur to delay me in the route, I shall reach New Mexico about the middle of November, when I antic.i.p.ate renewing those relations of a pleasant friendship in which you have been all the giver and I all the receiver.

"I send this by one of the spring caravans starting from Independence for Santa Fe, in the hope that it will safely reach you.

"I subscribe myself, dear Colonel Miranda,--

"Your grateful friend,--

"Francis Hamersley."

"Well, _teniente_," said his Colonel, as he refolded the far-fetched epistle, and returned it to the drawer, "do you comprehend matters any clearer now?"

"Clear as the sun that shines over the Llano Estacado," was the reply of the lieutenant, whose admiration for the executive qualities of his superior officer, along with the b.u.mpers he had imbibed, had now exalted his fancy to a poetical elevation. "_Carrai-i! Esta un golpe magnifico_! (It's a splendid stroke!) Worthy of Manuel Armilo himself.

Or even the great Santa Anna!"

"A still greater stroke than you think it, for it is double--two birds killed with the same stone. Let us again drink to it!"

The gla.s.ses were once more filled, and once more did the a.s.sociated bandits toast the nefarious enterprise they had so successfully accomplished.

Then Roblez rose to go to the _cuartel_ or barracks, where he had his place of sleeping and abode, bidding _buena noche_ to his colonel.

The latter also bethought him of bed, and, taking a lamp from the table, commenced moving towards his _cuarto de camara_.

On coming opposite a picture suspended against the _sala_ wall--the portrait of a beautiful girl--he stopped in front, for a moment gazed upon it, and then into a mirror that stood close by.

As if there was something in the gla.s.s that reflected its shadow into his very soul, the expression of exultant triumph, so lately depicted upon his face, was all at once swept from it, giving place to a look of blank bitterness.

"One is gone," he said, in a half-muttered soliloquy; "one part of the stain wiped out--thanks to the Holy Virgin for that. But the other; and she--where, where?"

And with these words he staggered on towards his chamber.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

STRUGGLING AMONG THE SAGES.

It is the fourth day after forsaking the couch among the shin oaks, and the two fugitives are still travelling upon the Llano Estacado. They have made little more than sixty miles to the south-eastward, and have not yet struck any of the streams leading out to the lower level of the Texan plain.

Their progress has been slow; for the wounded man, instead of recovering strength, has grown feebler. His steps are now unequal and tottering.

In addition to the loss of blood, something else has aided to disable him--the fierce cravings of hunger and the yet more insufferable agony of thirst.

His companion is similarly afflicted; if not in so great a degree, enough to make him also stagger in his steps. Neither has had any water since the last drop drank amid the waggons, before commencing the fight; and since then a fervent sun shining down upon them, with no food save crickets caught in the plain, an occasional horned frog, and some fruit of the _opuntia_ cactus--the last obtained sparingly.

Hunger has made havoc with both, sad and quick. Already at the end of the fourth day their forms are wasted. They are more like spectres than men.

And the scene around them is in keeping. The plain, far as the eye can reach, is covered with _artemisia_, whose h.o.a.ry foliage, in close contact at the tops, displays a continuation of surface like a vast winding-sheet spread over the world.

Across this fall the shadows of the two men, proportioned to their respective heights. That of the ex-Ranger extends nearly a mile before him; for the sun is low down, and they have its beams upon their backs.

They are facing eastward, in the hope of being able to reach the brow of the Llano where it abuts on the Texan prairies; though in the heart of one of them this hope is nearly dead. Frank Hamersley has but slight hopes that he will ever again see the homes of civilisation, or set foot upon its frontier. Even the ci-devant Ranger inclines to a similar way of thinking.

Not far off are other animated beings that seem to rejoice. The shadows of the two men are not the only ones that move over the sunlit face of the artemisia. There, too, are outlined the wings of birds--large birds with sable plumage and red naked necks, whose species both know well.

They are _zopilotes_--the vultures of Mexico.

A score of such shadows are flitting over the sage--a score of the birds are wheeling in the air above.

It is a sight to pain the traveller, even when seen at a distance. Over his own head it may well inspire him with fear. He cannot fail to read in it a forecast of his own fate.

The birds are following the two men, as they would a wounded buffalo or stricken deer. They soar and circle above them, at times swooping portentously near. They do not believe them to be spectres. Wasted as their flesh may be, there will still be a banquet upon their bones.

Now and then Walt Wilder casts a glance up towards them. He is anxious, though he takes care to hide his anxiety from his comrade. He curses the foul creatures, not in speech--only in heart, and silently.