horses kicked up showers of spray as they made their way,
slipping and stumbling, against the current. It was a silent
pilgrim age, and never for a moment did the strain slacken or the
men draw rein. Sometimes, as they hurried across a broad
tableland, or skirted the edge of a precipice and looked down
hundreds of feet below at the shining waters they had just
forded, or up at the rocky points of the mountains before them,
the beauty of the night overcame them and made them forget the
significance of their journey.

They were not always alone, for they passed at intervals through
sleeping villages of mud huts with thatched roofs, where the dogs
ran yelping out to bark at them, and where the pine-knots,
blazing on the clay ovens, burned cheerily in the moonlight. In
the low lands where the fever lay, the mist rose above the level
of their heads and enshrouded them in a curtain of fog, and the
dew fell heavily, penetrating their clothing and chilling
their heated bodies so that the sweating horses moved in a lather
of steam.

They had settled down into a steady gallop now, and ten or
fifteen miles had been left behind them.

``We are making excellent time,'' said Clay. ``The village of
San Lorenzo should lie beyond that ridge.'' He drove up beside
the driver and pointed with his whip. ``Is not that San
Lorenzo?'' he asked.

``Yes, senor,'' the man answered, ``but I mean to drive around
it by the old wagon trail. It is a large town, and people may be