"The reason that the robber's rendezvous had never been discovered was because of the impassable ravines that hedge it in on all sides.
"Hagoth proposed to take the shortest route straight across the summit of Mt. Misti which towers eighteen thousand feet into the air. So up we climbed, up into the rarified atmosphere, among the pines and cedars. Occasionally the clouds below us parted like the veil of a Turkish beauty, affording us seductive glimpses of the tropics at reeling distances below. We passed the timber line and traveled across the lava beds, undulating hills of black ashes. Here grew a yellow daisy with frosted leaves; somewhere below the clouds lay the world; but our goal was the snow clad peak that cut the sky in two.
"The ascent through the snow was bitterly cruel; some of the men were bleeding at the nose, others found it difficult to breathe, while some, with palpitation of the heart were crawling on their hands and knees. We were all temporarily blinded by the sun on the snow.
"At the top we skirted the sulphurous crater for a mile and a half and on the other side, slid down the snow clad peak on mats. Then we had to make quick work of it, for provisions that are carried as a man pack are light.
"Six hundred feet below us in the barranca was the camp of the Gadiantons. A gruesome spectacle they made in the light of the camp fire. Despite the cold, their lean brown limbs were bare save where they had decorated them with blood. Their loins were swathed in sheepskin and their shaven heads cockaded with feathers. Altogether, we were glad that the depth of the canyon lay between us. All night we toiled loosening the great boulders of the cliff that had been eroded into great blocks. At dawn of the second day we started several of them over the cliff by way of good morning. They cut great oak trees off from their roots, and crumbled to pieces in the ravine below. They did not do much damage but they brought the robbers out from their lair. When a side of the mountain crashed down, Zorum, the leader of the band, came out and called a truce.
"Hagoth descended to parley with him; he left instructions with us to wipe out the band in case he did not return. He offered them their choice of death or surrender. The terms were that they return to civilization and become decent citizens. It is one thing to die gloriously on the field of battle, and another to have the life crushed out of you like a rat in a hole. There was no possible way of escape as before they could get out, the top of the mountain would bury them alive, leaving them all like one of their men who had already been hit by a rolling boulder and whose remains were but a mangled mass in the gulley. They surrendered. They didn't seem to be enjoying themselves much up there in the mountains, anyway. So Hagoth just brought them down with him."
Seantum, as he leaned back in the boat and heard of the success of his rival, watched Ahah's expressive face, now agonizing in fear, again exulting in Hagoth's triumph. He knew that he had lost.
By the time the victorious warriors entered the city Ahah was on her balcony waving her scarf. Amid strains of barbaric music and the hurrahs of the populace she beheld her chieftain borne through the streets in the gilded chariot of the Lamanite king. As he glanced in her direction Hagoth removed his sable plume and let the sun caress the glossy black head she loved so well. Behind him stalked the Gadianton robbers, frightful apparitions to the awe-struck people. The travel stained Lamanite soldiers brought up the rear.
During all the feasting that followed, when Hagoth sat on the right hand of the king, and the great of the nation assembled at the board to hear him lauded and glorified, the chief panted for the time when all this tinsel should be over and he should be alone with a girl and claim his reward.