afar, their steps lagging and careless. Gillis and the girl, as well
as the two cattle-herders, were on horseback; the remainder soberly
trudged forward on foot, with guns slung to their shoulders. Wyman was
somewhat in advance, walking beside the stranger, the latter a man of
uncertain age, smoothly shaven, quietly dressed in garments bespeaking
an Eastern tailor, a bit grizzled of hair along the temples, and
possessing a pair of cool gray eyes. He had introduced himself by the
name of Hampton, but had volunteered no further information, nor was it
customary in that country to question impertinently. The others of the
little party straggled along as best suited themselves, all semblance
to the ordinary discipline of the service having been abandoned.

Hampton, through the medium of easy conversation, early discovered in
the sergeant an intelligent mind, possessing some knowledge of
literature. They had been discussing books with rare enthusiasm, and
the former had drawn from the concealment of an inner pocket a
diminutive copy of "The Merchant of Venice," from which he was reading
aloud a disputed passage, when the faint trail they followed suddenly
dipped into the yawning mouth of a black canyon. It was a narrow,
gloomy, contracted gorge, a mere gash between those towering hills
shadowing its depths on either hand. A swift mountain stream, noisy
and clear as crystal, dashed from rock to rock close beside the more
northern wall, while the ill-defined pathway, strewn with bowlders and
guarded by underbrush, clung to the opposite side, where low scrub
trees partially obscured the view.

All was silent as death when they entered. Not so much as the flap of
a wing or the stir of a leaf roused suspicion, yet they had barely
advanced a short hundred paces when those apparently bare rocks in
front flamed red, the narrow defile echoed to wild screeches and became