The heart of Colonel Chadmund misgave him as he galloped toward Hurricane Hill and saw no sign of life there. But while he was alternating between hope and despair, the figure of a man appeared around the corner of the rock, and then the form of a little boy was discerned, as he came running across the prairie with out-stretched arms.
"Oh, father! father!"
Colonel Chadmund leaped from the back of his horse and ran to meet him.
"My darling boy! God be thanked!"
The stern old soldier wept like a child as he caught him in his arms and hugged him to his breast, while more than one rough soldier, looking on, dashed the tears from his eyes and tried to look as if he were thinking of something else.
The danger was passed. Little Ned, carried in triumph to the fort, remained the appointed time with his father at this advanced frontier post, and when he returned to Santa Fe to his beloved mother it was with an escort which guaranteed his safety.
Thus ended his adventures with what were then the scourges of the great Southwest, but the memory of them is indelible and not to be subdued by the lapse of years. In his manhood days he looks back upon those troublous times when the wild riders left the bones of venturesome white men to whiten upon the banks of the Gila; and, although remembrance brings its thrill of excitement, it is coupled with a shudder whenever Ned Chadmund thinks of his passage "Through Apache Land."
Volume III of The War Whoop Series is entitled "In the Pecos Country."