"No, we shall probably find them a few hundred yards up the pass. They are trained not to go on without riders, and when their first alarm at the firing has ceased they will halt."
When the cairns were finished the vaqueros cut down two saplings and made a couple of rude crosses, which they fixed above their fallen comrades. Then they all proceeded up the pass, and soon came upon the horses, and, mounting, continued their way down into Monterey, where they arrived just as the sun was setting. Here Juan's wound was attended to. The injury was to the left arm, which had been thrown forward in the act of firing. The ball struck just above the elbow, and had cut a groove from that point nearly up to the shoulder.
"This is evidently my unlucky arm at present, Will," he said, with a smile; "after having had three gashes below the elbow a week ago, it now gets ploughed with a rifle-bullet."
"I should call it a lucky limb, Juan, considering that they are nothing but flesh wounds, and that had not the arm received them, both knife and bullet might have given you a vastly more serious wound elsewhere."
"Yes, that is true enough. There is one comfort in being wounded in this country. You can't go into the smallest village without finding half a dozen people capable of dressing an injury, more especially a knife wound. In fact, knife fights are so common that very little is thought of them unless really dangerous injury is inflicted."
"Will not this prevent your riding for a day or two, Juan?"
"Not a bit of it. We had intended to stop here to-morrow to give a rest to the horses, but the next day we will push on. Happily, we shall not have to be on our guard against danger, for the risk of falling in with marauding red-skins is too slight to be thought of. Our next day's ride will be an easy one, across a cultivated country. Then we have a long day and a half of mountain work."
The passes which they had to traverse before arriving at Señor Sagasta's ranch astonished Harland, who had no previous experience of such scenery. Sometimes they were travelling up ravines so deep and rugged that it was almost twilight below, while at others they wound along on natural ledges on the face of precipices where a stumble of the horse would mean certain death to it and its rider. Higher and higher they wound, until, crossing a narrow shoulder of bare rock, they looked down into the broad valley owned by Juan's father.
"Do you see that white speck in front of the dark patch of trees? That is the hacienda. As the crow flies, I do not suppose it is more than seven or eight miles away, but by the way we have to go it is five times that distance, and if we are there by this time to-morrow we shall have every reason to be satisfied."
When they started the next morning, Juan sent one of the vaqueros on with the news that he would arrive two hours after his messenger.