Their destination was Sawyer’s Crossing, the headquarters of the committee, where the council was still sitting, and where both culprits were to expiate the offense of which that council had already found them guilty.  They rode in great and breathless haste,—­a haste in which, strangely enough, even the captives seemed to join.  That haste possibly prevented them from noticing the singular change which had taken place in the second captive since the episode of the kiss.  His high color remained, as if it had burned through his mask of indifference; his eyes were quick, alert, and keen, his mouth half open as if the girl’s kiss still lingered there.  And that haste had made them careless, for the horse of the man who led him slipped in a gopher-hole, rolled over, unseated his rider, and even dragged the bound and helpless second captive from Judge Boompointer’s favorite mare.  In an instant they were all on their feet again, but in that supreme moment the second captive felt the cords which bound his arms had slipped to his wrists.  By keeping his elbows to his sides, and obliging the others to help him mount, it escaped their notice.  By riding close to his captors, and keeping in the crush of the throng, he further concealed the accident, slowly working his hands downwards out of his bonds.

Their way lay through a sylvan wilderness, mid-leg deep in ferns, whose tall fronds brushed their horses’ sides in their furious gallop and concealed the flapping of the captive’s loosened cords.  The peaceful vista, more suggestive of the offerings of nymph and shepherd than of human sacrifice, was in a strange contrast to this whirlwind rush of stern, armed men.  The westering sun pierced the subdued light and the tremor of leaves with yellow lances; birds started into song on blue and dove-like wings, and on either side of the trail of this vengeful storm could be heard the murmur of hidden and tranquil waters.  In a few moments they would be on the open ridge, whence sloped the common turnpike to “Sawyer’s,” a mile away.  It was the custom of returning cavalcades to take this hill at headlong speed, with shouts and cries that heralded their coming.  They withheld the latter that day, as inconsistent with their dignity; but, emerging from the wood, swept silently like an avalanche down the slope.  They were well under way, looking only to their horses, when the second captive slipped his right arm from the bonds and succeeded in grasping the reins that lay trailing on the horse’s neck.  A sudden vaquero jerk, which the well-trained animal understood, threw him on his haunches with his forelegs firmly planted on the slope.  The rest of the cavalcade swept on; the man who was leading the captive’s horse by the riata, thinking only of another accident, dropped the line to save himself from being dragged backwards from his horse.  The captive wheeled, and the next moment was galloping furiously up the slope.