He had ridden his mustang into the mountains as far as he could go, and when three days passed, with not a mouthful of food, he slew his pony, devoured what he wanted, and then pushed on for three days more, without eating, during two of which he did not taste a drop of water.
And through all that period, the temperature during the day never sank below a hundred degrees. The swarthy foe whose trail he was following (and whom he ultimately bagged) did almost precisely the same thing, and the endurance of neither was greater than that of the majority of their people at this very hour.
Mendez rode without saddle, and his only bridle was a piece of lariat loosely looped about the neck of his mustang, just back of the head. There was little need of that, for he readily guided the movements of the animal by the touch of the hand or heel or his voice.
Whether the renegades to the southward had seen their pursuers before the latter caught sight of them cannot be known, but within the succeeding five minutes a most unpleasant truth became manifest: they were fully as well mounted as the whites. Lieutenant Decker muttered impatiently when the fact could no longer be ignored:
“Their outbreak and flight were no sudden impulse,” he concluded, “for had it been they could not have made such complete preparations. There are no better ponies in the country than those they are riding.”
Shortly after this decision was reached another unpleasant discovery broke upon the whites, or rather upon Mendez, for he was the first to notice it, and told the rest in a few words of his broken English.
When first seen there were three of the flying Apaches, corresponding with the number that had fired the home and destroyed the family of Captain Murray. The second scrutiny of the band revealed the astonishing fact that there were now four, who were pushing desperately for the river.
Where in the name of all that was wonderful the fourth horseman had come from was beyond the understanding of the pursuers, unless a glimmer of the truth stole through the brain of Mendez. If so, he kept it to himself.
The first thought of the lieutenant and Freeman was that the lifeless warrior, which the Apaches were bearing away, had been set upon a pony, and so fixed that he could keep upright during the flight; but to do that an additional animal was necessary, and his sudden appearance was as amazing as that of his rider.
The most probable theory was that the new reinforcement had been waiting somewhere along the line of flight, and fell into line when the proper time arrived; but the disquieting conviction could not be avoided that Maroz and Ceballos had not only made deliberate preparations for their crimes, but had more allies than at first was suspected.