RETORTS FROxM OUR SPIES.
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particularly as his rifle would aid their own messengers for succor in fighting their way, if necessary, to the other camp.
" So, no doubt, he was sent off, with the three warriors about him, whose business it was to see that he did not prove traitor, and, as well, to bring succor back with them.
" I do not question that your meeting was purely accidental. Both of you were equally surprised by the unexpected apparition of the old mission ruins. You came so suddenly together because all your senses were absorbed in the astonishment; your eyes were probably upraised, and, it may be, your mouths were all agape, or else the collision which did occur would never have taken place between persons so trained to the nicety of sense necessary in, and peculiar to, prairie warfare."
" Your conclusion is not particularly complimentary, but is, as it appears to me, not less the true one for that."
" I think you may safely claim the distinction of having been the first person in all this weary wilderness who has suffered martyrdom through the organ of wonder."
It was not long until we readied our old trail, not far from the mountain gap which led into the valley of the rancho.
Here our spies reported the traces of a very large body of horsemen passing through. They estimated their numbers at over fifteen hundred. This was appalling odds for our small and crippled force to meet; but we had calculated on a desperate venture, and it was too late to turn back now, had we been disposed.
We pushed on, but with greater caution, for fear of a surprise or ambush. There was nothing of the proud alacrity which had heretofore characterized our movements in the advance we were now making, and I grew moody.
It seemed almost like the turn-out of a hospital of the wounded to lead a forlorn hope ; I felt depressed in spite of myself, and the slow, monotonous tramp of our horses sounded like a funereal march.
B b 2