On the pathway down through the forest the Mexican, now in advance, uttered a low “hist,” halted, and held out a warning hand toward his master. The gaze of both was now fixed in the same direction. Below them could be seen the figure of the horseman coming around a bend in the roadway. The Mexican raised his rifle to the shoulder, but the hand of Robles detained him. The time was not yet—the distance was too great in view of the obstructing timber. Robles turned away and rested an arm against a tree trunk. His eyes were downcast; for the moment his mind was far away. He saw once again the little cemetery on the hill, with the marble cross inscribed “Hermana,” and the other gravestone at the head of the twin mounds that marked the resting place of his parents whose hearts had been broken by Rosetta’s tragic end. The fingers of the man who had long years ago sworn the vendetta worked nervously, closing and unclosing themselves. The rider was nearer now, in a higher loop of the road where the trees were more scattered than below. Merle, drowsy from the reaction of her emotions, had dropped off asleep on her sofa. Tia Teresa had returned to the portico, to make sure that the interloper had taken himself off for good and would not return. In the little canyon Dick Willoughby was quietly riding behind his accumulating drove of cattle. Suddenly a shot from among the woods rang through the air. Tia Teresa heard it, and after the start of first surprise, into her eyes came the light of swift comprehension and her whole face was illumed by fierce vindictive joy. “At last, at last,” she murmured, “vengeance begins.” And in the fervor of her triumph she threw up her extended arms, as if to give benediction to a righteous deed. Dick also heard the sharp detonation which his experienced ear knew at once to be from a rifle, not from the shot-gun that some sportsman after quail or rabbits might have been using. He betrayed no great surprise—just the unspoken word “curious” hovered on his lips as, halting his horse, he turned in his saddle to glance upward in the direction whence the sound had come. Then after a moment he wheeled the pony round, and, abandoning his drove for the present, ascended at a leisurely pace the narrow pathway which he knew communicated with the winding highroad above. When the bullet had reached its fated billet, Marshall Thurston’s fingers were still gripping the saddle horn. And right there the missile of death struck, glancing upward from the metal crown and piercing the victim right through the heart. Not a cry—just an outflung arm, a swaying figure slipping down onto the roadway, and a terrified riderless horse pivoting quickly round on its haunches, then galloping madly for home. Dick, glancing upward through the timber, caught a glimpse of the fleeing steed, and he touched his own pony with the spur so that it, too, darted forward.