"How so, Enrico?" quickly from Carmelita.
"His horses left that stream riderless, as their plunging gait shows; though they went into it under bridle, as is plain from the even measure of their step. The foot impression of men's hard-leather soles lies in that creek-bed. Stanislaus and many with him wear Mission shoes of tanned cattle-skin. Furthermore," holding up a knot of ribbon, "this adornment was caught on a low-sweeping madrona branch, and these," showing several wet deer-skin moccasins inlaid with glass beads, "I plucked from crevices where the bottom of the stream is rocky. The scoundrelly renegades cannot be far away. Let us rush down on them, having caution, though, for ambuscade."
"They are bound for the cave two miles farther down the cañon, and they sought to deceive us into following riderless horses. We must cut them off before they reach the shelter," cried Carmelita.
She led the way at break-neck speed through chaparral, over gullies, up rocky heights that would have taxed the climbing abilities of a goat, down a long, thickly-shrubbed glade, to a ragged opening under a cliff. It was the exit through which, the night of the storm, Farquharson and Brown, with Yoscolo and Stanislaus, had passed from the cave which gave refuge to Carmelita and her dueña.
"Within and quickly!" called the girl, driving straight through the natural door. The peons thronged after her.
Light made its way into the many-chambered cavern through the innumerable rifts in the rocky mountain side. Carmelita led the way to the lower entrance where the carreta had come to grief. Here they waited, grim figures in the twilight silence.
"Some are coming," Enrico whispered after a moment.
They saw many forms approaching. The Indians, carrying the girls in their arms, stalked in single file, each stepping with precision in the footprints of his predecessor, to give the impression that but one man had passed that way. The semidarkness of the cave prevented their seeing anyone inside.
"Drop your rifles! Up with your hands!" Carmelita's voice gathered volume from the great spaces behind.
Stanislaus and his men were petrified.