She lay in a sparse grove of firs, and the shadows told of late afternoon.  She smelled wood smoke, and she heard the sharp crunch of horses’ teeth nipping grass.  Voices caused her to turn her face.  A group of men stood and sat round a camp-fire eating like wolves.  The looks of her captors made Madeline close her eyes, and the fascination, the fear they roused in her made her open them again.  Mostly they were thin-bodied, thin-bearded Mexicans, black and haggard and starved.  Whatever they might be, they surely were hunger-stricken and squalid.  Not one had a coat.  A few had scarfs.  Some wore belts in which were scattered cartridges.  Only a few had guns, and these were of diverse patterns.  Madeline could see no packs, no blankets, and only a few cooking-utensils, all battered and blackened.  Her eyes fastened upon men she believed were white men; but it was from their features and not their color that she judged.  Once she had seen a band of nomad robbers in the Sahara, and somehow was reminded of them by this motley outlaw troop.

They divided attention between the satisfying of ravenous appetites and a vigilant watching down the forest aisles.  They expected some one, Madeline thought, and, manifestly, if it were a pursuing posse, they did not show anxiety.  She could not understand more than a word here and there that they uttered.  Presently, however, the name of Don Carlos revived keen curiosity in her and realization of her situation, and then once more dread possessed her breast.

A low exclamation and a sweep of arm from one of the guerrillas caused the whole band to wheel and concentrate their attention in the opposite direction.  They heard something.  They saw some one.  Grimy hands sought weapons, and then every man stiffened.  Madeline saw what hunted men looked like at the moment of discovery, and the sight was terrible.  She closed her eyes, sick with what she saw, fearful of the moment when the guns would leap out.

There were muttered curses, a short period of silence followed by whisperings, and then a clear voice rang out, “El Capitan!”

A strong shock vibrated through Madeline, and her eyelids swept open.  Instantly she associated the name El Capitan with Stewart and experienced a sensation of strange regret.  It was not pursuit or rescue she thought of then, but death.  These men would kill Stewart.  But surely he had not come alone.  The lean, dark faces, corded and rigid, told her in what direction to look.  She heard the slow, heavy thump of hoofs.  Soon into the wide aisle between the trees moved the form of a man, arms flung high over his head.  Then Madeline saw the horse, and she recognized Majesty, and she knew it was really Stewart who rode the roan.  When doubt was no longer possible she felt a suffocating sense of gladness and fear and wonder.