"What, across here?" Don Miguel said in amazement: "why, I only see precipices on both sides."
"Well," the hunter replied, "we will cross it."
The hacendero shook his head despondingly, and Valentine smiled.
"Do you know where we are?" he asked.
"No," his comrades replied.
"I will tell you," he continued; "this spot is mournfully celebrated among the redskins and hunters of the prairie; perhaps you have heard its name mentioned, little suspecting that the day would come for you to be so near it: it is called El Mal Paso, owing to that enormous canyon which intersects the mountain, and suddenly intercepts a communication with the opposite side."
"Well?" Don Miguel asked.
"Well," Valentine went on, "some hours back, when from the top of the peak I watched the two travellers we saw at a distance on the Santa Fe road, my eye settled accidentally on the Mal Paso; then I understood that a chance of salvation was left us, and before confessing ourselves beaten, we must try to cross it."
"Then," Don Miguel said, with a shudder, "you are resolved to make this mad attempt?"
"I am."