"Say that you will avenge me, brother?" the dying man asked, his eye emitting a fierce flash.

"I will avenge you," Don Stefano answered; "I swear it by our Saviour!"

"Good! I have been assassinated by men dressed as Apache Indians, but among them I fancied I recognised—"

"Whom?"

"Wilkes the squatter, and Samuel, his accomplice."

"Enough! Where is your wife?"

"Dead! My daughters, save them!" Don Pacheco murmured.

"Where are they?"

"Carried off by the bandits."

"Oh! I will discover them, even if hidden in the bowels of the earth! Did you not recognise anyone else?"