Both wagon and hoof-tracks here pursued a common road.  It was evident that some horsemen had found it necessary to ride alongside.  It was evident, too, that the outlaws were travelling at full speed, as though anxious to reach some familiar lair before turning to face their expected pursuers.  Every one in the gang, from Pasqual down to their humblest packer, well knew that it could not be long before cavalry in strong force would come trotting in chase.  The squadron at Stoneman would surely be on the march by the coming sunset.  As for “C” troop, they had little to fear.  Pasqual laughed with savage glee as he thought how he had lured them in scattered detachments far up to the Gila or over to the Christobal.  No need to fear the coming of the late escort of the paymaster.  By this time those not dead, drugged, or drunk were worn out with fatigue.  Over the body of his bandit brother, the swarthy Ramon, he had fiercely rejoiced that seven to one he had avenged his death, and Pasqual counted on the fingers of his brown and bloody hand the number of the victims of the night.  Donovan and his fellow-trooper killed on the open plain.  The paymaster and his clerk, Mullan and the other soldier, dead in their tracks and burned to ashes by this time, and, best of all, “that pig of a sergeant,” as Moreno called him, that hound and murderer, Feeny,—­he who had slain Ramon,—­bound, gagged, and left to miserable death by torture.  Indeed, as he was jolted along in the ambulance, groaning and cursing by turns, Pasqual wondered why he had not insisted that Harvey, too, should be given the coup de grace before their start.  It was an unpardonable omission.  Never mind!  There in the brand-new Concord that came clattering along there was booty that outrivalled all.  There was wealth far exceeding the stacks of treasury notes,—­old Harvey’s daughters,—­old Harvey’s daughters.  It was with mad, feverish joy that when at last the sun came pouring in a flood of light over the desert of the Cababi he listened to the report of a trusted subordinate.

“I could see every mile of the road with my glasses, capitan, from the cliff top yonder—­every mile from Moreno’s to where we struck the canon.  There isn’t a sign of dust,—­there isn’t a sign of pursuing party.”

“Bueno! Then we rest when we reach the cave.  This is even better than I hoped.”

But there were two elements in the problem Capitan Pasqual had failed to consider,—­Lieutenant Drummond’s scout in the Christobal, Cochises’s band of Chiricahuas in the Santa Maria.  Who could have foreseen that the little troop, finishing its duties at the northern end of the range and about turning south to re-scout the Santa Maria, had ridden out upon the plain, summoned by the beacon at Picacho Pass, and less than two hours after their hurried start from the burning ruins at Moreno’s were speeding on their trail?  The best field-glasses ever stolen from the paternal government could not