The Press., 1892-11-17


 rifts in the press of hurryiEg legions mid the crush of city thoroughfare. I dashed on hundred yards in advance of my comrades
 What was this? The bushes trampled and broken down, just as we in our passage were trampling and breaking them. What?
 Hoof marks in the dustl
 "The trail!' cried, ssthe trailp'
 They sprang toward me. Brent fol- lowed the line with his eye. He galloped forward, with a look of triumph.
 Suddenly saw him fling himself half out of his saddle and clutch at some ob- ject. Still going at speed, and holding on by one leg alone, after the Indian fashion for sport or shelter against an arrow or shot, he picked up something from the bushes, regained his seat and waved his treasure to us. We ranged up and rode beside him over @ gap in the sage.
 A lady's glove!-that was what he had stopped to recover. An old buckskin riding gauntlet, neatly stitched about the wrist and pinked on the wristlet. A pretty glove, strangely, almost tragical- ly, feminine in this desolation. A well worn glove that had seen better days, like its mistress, but never any day so good as this, when it proved to us that we were on the sure path of rescue.
 ssI take up the gauntlet" said Brent. sGare qui le touche!'
 We said nothing more; for this uncon- scious token, this silent cry for help, made the danger seem more closely i'm minent. We pressed on. No hinching in any of the horses. Where we could we were going at speed. Where they could the horses kept side by side, nerv- ing each other. Companionship sus- tained them in that terrible ride.
 And now in front the purple Sierra was growing brown and rising up a dis tinct wall, cleft visibly with dell, gully, ravine and canyon. The sawteeth Of the ridge defined themselves sharply into peak and pinnacle. Broad fields of cool snow gleamed upon the summits.
 We were ascending now all the time into the subalpine regions. We crossed great sloping savannas, deep in dry, rustling grass, where nation of cattle might pasture. We plunged through broad wastes of hot sand. We flung ourselves down and up the red sides of water worn gullies. We took breakneck leaps across dry quebradas in the clay. We clattered across stony arroyos, long ing thirstily for the gush of water that had flowed there not many months be- fore.
 The trail was everywhere plain. No prairie craft was needed to trace it. Here the chase had gone, but few hours ago: here, across grassy slopes, trampling the grass as if mower had passed that way; here, blowing wearily through the sand; here, treading the red, crum bling clay; here, breaking down the side of a bank; here, leaving the sharp hoof track in the dry mud of a fled torrent. Every where straight path, pointing for that deepening gap in the Sierra, Luggernel alley, the only gate of escape.
 Brent's unerring judgment had di- vined the course aright. On he led, charging along the trail as if he were trampling already on the carcasses ot the pursued. On he led, and we fol. lowed, drawing nearer, nearer to ou1 goal. Our horses suffered bitterly for water Some five hours we had ridden without pause Not one drop or sign of water in all that arid waste. The torrents had poured along the dry watercourses too hastily to let the scanty alders and will ] lows along their line treasure up any sap of growth. The wild sage bushes had plainly never tasted fluid more plenteous than seldom dewdrops doleC out on certain rare festal days, enough to keep their meager foliage dusty gray. No pleasant streamlet lurked any where under the long dry grass of tht savannas. The arroyos were pa1cheG and hot as rifts in lava.
 It became agonizing to listen to the panting and gasping of our horses Their eyes grew staring and bloodshot We suffered ourselves hardly less thar they. It was cruel to press on. But wt must hinder crueller cruelty. Love against Tme-Vengeance against Time l We must not finch for any weak hu manity to the noble allies that struggled - on with us without one token of resist ance.
 Fulano suffered least. He turned hi brave eye back, and beckoned me witt his ear to listen, while he seemed to say ''See, this is my endurance! I hold my power ready still to show"
 And he curved his proud neck, shool his mane like banner, and galloped thu grandest of all.
 We came to a broad strip of sand, thu dry bed of mountain torrent. Tn, trail followed up this disappointing path. Heavy blowing for the tiret horses! How would they bear the rougl work down the ravine yet to come?
 Suddenly our leader pulled up ant sprang from the saddle.
 s'Lookt' he cried, "how those fellow spent their time and saved ours. Thanl heaven for this! We shall save her surely, now"
 It was water! No need to go back t. Pindar to know that it was "the best"
 They had dug pit deep in the thirst, sand and found lurking river buried there. Nature never questioned wha manner of men they were that sought l Murderers flying from vengeance ant
 I have