Pass, and of that number how many have returned?—­only three.  Did they not see the flurry and excitement when that sergeant was shot from ambush?  Now, therefore, is the time to strike,—­now while the main body is far away.  Whatsoever booty there may be obtainable in that rocky canon ’tis well worth the attempt.  And so from north to south the puff-balls of blue-white smoke go sailing upward through the pines, and it all means speed! speed!

At seven o’clock the little command has had coffee and a hearty breakfast.  No lack of provender here in this hitherto undiscovered robbers’ roost.  Drummond, cool, confident, has had his men about him where none others could see or hear, has assigned them the stations which they are to take the instant of alarm, and has given them their instructions.  Walsh it is who is now on lookout, and he is peering away down southward so intently that some comrade is prompted to call up to him in a low tone,—­

“See anything?”

To which, without removing the glass from under his hat-brim, the Irish trooper merely shakes his head.

“Any more smokes?”

“Sorra a smoke have I seen at all.”

“Well, then, what in blazes are you staring at?”

“How can I tell ye till I find out?” is the Hibernian reply, and this is enough to send the corporal on a climb.  Drummond at the moment is again kneeling by Wing, who has but just awakened from a fitful sleep, Miss Harvey being the first to hear him stir and sigh.  Ruth and her sister, too, seem about to withdraw, but Wing, whose voice is weak now, begs them to remain.

“Has anything been seen yet—­back on the trail—­of the Stoneman party?” he asks.

“No, sergeant,” replies Drummond; “but remember that we can only see some six miles of the trail, after that it is lost in that tortuous ravine down which we rode on the chase.  Walsh is up there on lookout, and I’ll ask if he can see anything now;” and calling to one of the men, Drummond bids him inquire.  All eagerly await the reply.

At last it comes,—­

“No dust on the back track, sir, but something that looks like it far to the south.  We think it may be some of our fellows coming back, but it is too faint and far to make it out yet.”

The corporal is the speaker, his resonant voice contrasting strongly with the feeble accents of his immediate superior, the wounded sergeant.

“Then I have something that must be told you, lieutenant, something Miss Harvey already has an inkling of, for she has met and known my dear mother.  If this pain continue to increase, and fever set in, I may be unable to tell it later.  Some of the men thought I had enlisted under an alias, lieutenant, but they were wrong.  Wing is my rightful name.  My father was chief officer of the old ‘Flying Cloud’ in the days when American clipper ships beat the world.  The gold fever seized him, though, and he quit sailing and went to mining in the early