trigger, and the man rolled over like a log. A cry of dismay burst from the hillside above Harland, where the men had evidently been watching also for their leader to join his comrades and give the signal for a rush.

"I have shot Melos, Juan!" Will shouted. "At least if he is, as you suppose, their leader."

"Well done, indeed! We shall have no difficulty with the rest of them if their paymaster is dead; they will think of nothing now but saving their own wretched lives."

The parties on the opposite sides of the ravine now shouted to each other. Two or three of them urged their companions to make a general rush, but the majority were altogether against this.

"Why should we throw away our lives?" one said. "They have all got pistols, and even if we got the better of them, four or five of us would be likely to go down before we had finished with them. Indeed, they would shoot us down directly we showed ourselves, and half of us would never reach the bottom."

There was a silence which showed that there was a general feeling that he was right. Then the same speaker went on:

"Caballeros, we have been cruelly misled; we are poor men, and have been led into this. Two of us have been killed; we ask your mercy."

As he ceased there was a general cry of "Mercy! mercy!"

"You dogs!" Juan shouted back, "if it were not that all of your lives are not worth as much as a drop of the honest blood of those with me, I would not move from here until I had put an end to the last of you. However, you have had a lesson now. Come down one at a time into the road. When you get there drop your pistols and knives to the ground, and then go down the hill. When one man has started let the next man come down. How many are there of you?"

"There are six of us alive," the man answered. "We were eight besides our leader. My brother was killed by you in San Diego the other night, and if it had not been for that I should not have come."

"Look here," Juan said, "I shall see every one of your faces plainly as you come down, and when you have thrown down your arms you will stand and face this rock so that I may have a good look at you. I warn you to leave San Diego as soon as you get back, for when I return I will have the town searched for you, and any of you found there will pay for this with your lives. Now you come down first."

One by one the six men came down, placed their weapons upon the ground, turned to the rock where Juan was lying, and then went down the pass without a word being uttered. When the last had gone Juan stepped down into the road, and was at once joined by Will, who had kept his rifle pointed on each man as he reached the road, in case he should intend treachery against Juan. Two of the vaqueros also stepped out.

"Where is Pedro?" Juan asked.

"He is dead, sir. He was shot through the body, but had just strength to throw himself in among the rocks. I heard him groaning just at first, but he was soon silent; I could see him from where I lay, and he has not moved since."

"See if he is dead, Sancho. This is a bad business."

The man returned in a minute.

"He is quite dead, señor."

"Where is the man you shot, Will? Let us see if my suspicions are correct."

Will led the way to the spot, followed by the others. Juan glanced at the dead man.

"It is as I thought," he said. Then he turned to the vaqueros. "You may as well search him. It is likely he has money upon him."

"He has a bag, and a heavy one, sir," one of them said, as he lifted a canvas bag from the dead man's sash.

"Let us see what he valued my life at," Juan replied.

The two vaqueros counted over the gold pieces.

"There are eighty of them."

"Ten apiece," Juan remarked. "Put aside sixty for the widows of Pedro and Lopez, and take ten each yourselves."

"Shall we do anything with the body, señor?"

"Fetch some big stones and pile them over it. There will be no search for him, for you may be sure he has not mentioned to anyone in the town what he was going to do, or where he was going. He probably asked for a week's leave of absence, and would likely enough say that he was going up to Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, and when he does not return it will be supposed that he has been murdered on the way. When you have done with him you had better do the same thing with the bodies of your two comrades. The ground is too rocky to dig graves, and they will sleep as well there as elsewhere. It would be impossible for us to carry them home."

An hour's labour and the work was finished. Will assisted the men in the work. Juan did not offer to do so.

"I have a bullet in my shoulder," he said. "Another fellow fired the instant that I shot his comrade. He luckily hit my shoulder instead of my head. I will get you to fetch Pedro's sash and make a sling for my arm. We can do nothing for it until we go down to Monterey."

"Have the horses gone far, do you think, Juan?"

"No, we shall probably find them a few hundred yards up the pass. They are trained not to go on without riders, and when their first alarm at the firing has ceased they will halt."

When the cairns were finished the vaqueros cut down two saplings and made a couple of rude crosses, which they fixed above their fallen comrades. Then they all proceeded up the pass, and soon came upon the horses, and, mounting, continued their way down into Monterey, where they arrived just as the sun was setting. Here Juan's wound was attended to. The injury was to the left arm, which had been thrown forward in the act of firing. The ball struck just above the elbow, and had cut a groove from that point nearly up to the shoulder.

"This is evidently my unlucky arm at present, Will," he said, with a smile; "after having had three gashes below the elbow a week ago, it now gets ploughed with a rifle-bullet."

"I should call it a lucky limb, Juan, considering that they are nothing but flesh wounds, and that had not the arm received them, both knife and bullet might have given you a vastly more serious wound elsewhere."

"Yes, that is true enough. There is one comfort in being wounded in this country. You can't go into the smallest village without finding half a dozen people capable of dressing an injury, more especially a knife wound. In fact, knife fights are so common that very little is thought of them unless really dangerous injury is inflicted."

"Will not this prevent your riding for a day or two, Juan?"

"Not a bit of it. We had intended to stop here to-morrow to give a rest to the horses, but the next day we will push on. Happily, we shall not have to be on our guard against danger, for the risk of falling in with marauding red-skins is too slight to be thought of. Our next day's ride will be an easy one, across a cultivated country. Then we have a long day and a half of mountain work."

The passes which they had to traverse before arriving at Señor Sagasta's ranch astonished Harland, who had no previous experience of such scenery. Sometimes they were travelling up ravines so deep and rugged that it was almost twilight below, while at others they wound along on natural ledges on the face of precipices where a stumble of the horse would mean certain death to it and its rider. Higher and higher they wound, until, crossing a narrow shoulder of bare rock, they looked down into the broad valley owned by Juan's father.

"Do you see that white speck in front of the dark patch of trees? That is the hacienda. As the crow flies, I do not suppose it is more than seven or eight miles away, but by the way we have to go it is five times that distance, and if we are there by this time to-morrow we shall have every reason to be satisfied."

When they started the next morning, Juan sent one of the vaqueros on with the news that he would arrive two hours after his messenger.

"It is just as well to give them notice," he said to Will. "I told him to mention that I have my arm in a sling, but that I have no serious injury. It has