Wiping the big drops of perspiration from his forehead, and panting loudly after his violent exertions, Archie again toiled up the mountain, so weary that he could scarcely drag one foot after the other.  He stumbled over logs, fell upon the rocks, and dragged himself through bushes that cut into his tattered garments like a knife.  Hour after hour passed in this way, and, finally, just as the sun was rising, Archie, faint with thirst, aching in every joint, and bleeding from numerous wounds, stepped upon a broad, flat bowlder, which formed the summit of the cliff.

On his right, between him and a huge rock that rose for fifty feet without a single break or crevice, was a narrow but deep chasm which ran down the cliff he had just ascended, and into which he had more than once been in imminent danger of falling as he stumbled about in the darkness.  Far below him was the glade, a thin wreath of smoke rising from the smouldering camp-fire, and on his left was the gorge, a hundred times more frightful in his eyes now than it had ever seemed before.  In front of him the mountain sloped gently down to the valley below, its base clothed with a thick wood, which at that height looked like an unbroken mass of green sward, and beyond that, so far away that it could be but dimly seen, was a broad expanse of prairie, from which arose the whitewashed walls of his uncle’s rancho.  It was a view that would have put an artist into ecstasies, but the fugitive was in no mood to appreciate it.  He had no eye for the beauties of nature then—­he had other things to think of; and he regarded the picturesque mountains and rocks, and the luxuriant woods, as so many grim monsters that stood between him and his home.

But Archie could not remain long inactive.  After all the dangers he had incurred, and the bruises and scratches he had received, he had accomplished but little.  He was still thirty miles from home, hungry and thirsty, and pursued by crafty enemies, who might even then be watching him from some secret covert.

“Oh, if I were only there!” said he, casting a longing glance toward the rancho, whose inmates, just then sitting down to a dainty breakfast, little dreamed how much good a small portion of their bounty would have done the fugitive on the mountain-top.  “But, as the rancho can’t come to me, I must go to it.”

Archie found the descent of the mountain comparatively easy.  There were not so many bushes and logs to impede his progress, the slope was more gradual, and he had not gone more than half a mile when he found a cool spring bubbling out from under the rocks.  He bathed his hands and face, drank a little of the water, and when he set out again he felt much refreshed.  He followed the course of the stream, which ran from the spring down the mountain, keeping a bright lookout for enemies all the while, and stopping now and then to listen for sounds of pursuit, when suddenly, as he came around the base of a rock, he found himself