“Is it rescue?  Are our people coming?” was the query that rose to every lip.  “God grant it!”

Heavens, how hearts were beating!  How ears were straining underneath that now blazing roof!  Louder, fiercer soared the flames; furious became the snapping of sun-baked branch and twig; stifling and thick the smoke.

“Quick!  Come here for a breath of air,” called Harvey to his sisters.  “It’s safe for a moment, at least.”  And instantly they joined him at the door-way, still clinging close to the floor.

Listen!  Hoofs!  The thunder of galloping steeds!  A distant cheer!  A soldierly voice in hoarse command,—­

“Steady, steady there!  Keep together, men!”

“God be praised!” screamed Feeny, in ecstasy.  “Look up, major; look up, sir.  We’re all safe now.  Here come the boys.  Hurroo!” And mad with relief and delight, the sergeant sprang from his lair just as a tall trooper in the Union blue shot into sight in the full glare of the flames, sprang from his foaming steed, waving his hat and yelling,—­

“All right!  All safe, lads!  Here we are!”

Down went Harvey’s rifle as he leaped out into the blessed air to greet the coming host.  Down went Feeny’s carbine as, with outstretched hand, he sprang to grasp his comrade trooper’s.  With rush and thunder of hoofs a band of horsemen came tearing up to the spot just as Feeny reached their leader,—­reached him and went down to earth, stunned, senseless from a crashing blow, even as Ned Harvey, his legs jerked from under him by the sudden clip of rawhide lariat, was dragged at racing speed out over the plain, bumping over stick and stone, tearing through cactus, screaming with rage and pain, until finally battered into oblivion, the last sound that fell upon his ear was the shriek of agony from his sisters’ lips, telling him they were struggling in the rude grasp of reckless and infuriated men.

VI.

Harvey could not long have lain unconscious.  No bones were broken, no severe concussion sustained in the rapid drag over the sandy surface, and the awful sense of the calamity that had befallen him and the dread and doubt as to the fate of his beloved ones seemed to rally his stunned and bewildered faculties and bring him face to face with the horror of the situation.  Barely able to breathe, he found himself rudely gagged.  Striving to raise his hand to tear the hateful bandage away, he found that he was pinioned by the elbows and bound hand and foot by the very riata, probably, that had dragged him thither.  No doubt as to the nationality of his unseen captors here.  The skill with which he had been looped, tripped, whisked away, and bound,—­the sharp, biting edges, even the odor of dirty rawhide rope,—­all told him that though Americans were not lacking in the gang, his immediate antagonists hailed from across the Sonora line.  Who and what they were mattered