The facts, that have late come to light, do not alter the case—at least, in any way to strengthen the testimony against him.
If the four horsemen seen were not Indians—and this has been clearly shown by the discovery of the disguises—it is not the less likely that they have had to do with the death of young Poindexter. Besides, there is nothing to connect them with the mustanger, any more than if they had been real Comanches.
Why, then, this antipathy against the respited prisoner, for the second time surging up?
There is a strangeness about the thing that perplexes a good many people.
There are a few that understand, or suspect, the cause. A very few: perhaps only three individuals.
Two of them are Zeb Stump and Louise Poindexter; the third Captain Cassius Calhoun.
The old hunter, with instinct keenly on the alert, has discovered some underhanded action—the actors being Miguel Diaz and his men, associated with a half-score of like characters of a different race—the “rowdies” of the settlement. Zeb has traced the action to its instigator—the ex-captain of volunteer cavalry.
He has communicated his discovery to the young Creole, who is equal to the understanding of it. It is the too clear comprehension of its truth that now inspires her with a keen solicitude.
Anxiously she awaits every word of news—watches the road leading from the Fort to Casa del Corvo, as if the sentence of her own death, or the security of her life, hung upon the lips of some courier to come that way!
She dares not show herself at the prison. There are soldiers on guard, and spectators around it—a crowd of the idle curious, who, in all countries, seem to feel some sort of sombre enjoyment in the proximity of those who have committed great crimes.