to rest upon the other two, the last speaker, after a few moments'
silent and rapid riding, continued abruptly, "You don't seem
curious?"

"Of what?" said Gideon, lifting his soft eyes to the speaker. "You
tell me of a brother at the point of death, who seeks the Lord
through an humble vessel like myself. HE will tell me the rest."

A silence still more constrained on the part of the two strangers
followed, which they endeavored to escape from by furious riding;
so that in half an hour the party had reached a point where the
tules began to sap the arid plain, while beyond them broadened the
lagoons of the distant river. In the foreground, near a clump of
dwarfed willows, a camp-fire was burning, around which fifteen or
twenty armed men were collected, their horses picketed in an outer
circle guarded by two mounted sentries. A blasted cotton-wood with
a single black arm extended over the tules stood ominously against
the dark sky.

The circle opened to receive them and closed again. The elder man
dismounted and leading Gideon to the blasted cotton-wood, pointed
to a pinioned man seated at its foot with an armed guard over him.
He looked up at Gideon with an amused smile.

"You said it was a dying man," said Gideon, recoiling.

"He will be a dead man in half an hour," returned the stranger.

"And you?"