“By heaven! and now to think that one of our troop—­’C’ troop—­should have been engaged in this outrage!  But we’ll get them, men,” said Drummond, straightening up to his full height and raising his gauntleted hand in air.  “They can’t go fast or far with those wagons such a night as this.  They’ll strike the foot-hills before they’ve gone ten miles, then they’ll have to go slow.  We’ll catch them before the sun is up, and, by the God of heaven, if Bland is with them, I’ll string him to the highest tree we can find.”

“There’s more than him that’ll be strung up,” growled a grizzled old trooper in an undertone.  “The gang that murdered Pat Donovan will find scant mercy in this crowd.”

“Ay, ay,” said another, “and there’s more than Pat Donovan to be scored off.  Look yonder.”  For at the instant one of the packers came leading into the corral a resisting mule, at sight of whose burden many of the horses started in fear.  It was the lifeless body of Donovan’s companion, the soldier who had escaped the assassin’s bullet when “Patsy” fell only to be overtaken and cut down half-way to Moreno’s.

“It’s the bloodiest night I’ve known even in Arizona,” said Lee to his young leader.  “The paymaster and Mr. Harvey about as good as dead, old Feeny dying, most like, the clerk and Mullan and some other trooper of the escort burned to ashes in that hell-hole there, and Donovan and this last one—­some of our fellows think is Flynn, from ‘F’ troop—­shot to death.  It’s worse than Apache, lieutenant, and there’ll be no use trying to restrain our fellows when we catch the blackguards.”

Quarter of an hour later, leaving half a dozen soldiers under an experienced sergeant to guard the packs, the wounded, and the non-combatants at the smouldering ruins of the ranch, with barely a score of seasoned troopers at his back, Lieutenant Jim Drummond rode resolutely out towards the southern desert, towards the distant line of jagged mountains that spanned the far horizon.  The false and fatal blaze at the Picacho had utterly disappeared, and all was darkness at the west.  The red glow of the smouldering embers behind was no longer sufficient to light their path.  Straight away southward led the wheel-tracks, first separate and distinct, but soon blending, as though one wagon had fallen behind and followed the trail of the bolder leader in the first.  Straight away after them went the ruck of hoof-tracks, telling plainly that for a time at least the gang had massed and was prepared to guard its plunder.  Stop to divide it was evident they dared not, for they had not with them the implements to break into the safe, and all their searching and threatening had failed to extract from the apparently dying paymaster any clue as to what he had done with the key.  Stick together, therefore, they undoubtedly would, reasoned the lieutenant, and all their effort would be to reach some secure haunt in the Sierras, and there send back their demand for ransom.  Twenty-five thousand