"I'll climb up and see if that really is a cave up there," she thought. Fired by this ambition, she started to work her way up the cliff; no easy task and ruinous to riding boots of soft leather. By the time she had discovered this last fact she had covered about one-third of the distance and was crouching beside a protruding rock to get her breath. "It's rather foolish to tear up a perfectly good pair of riding boots just at the psychological moment when leather is villainously high and I'm on the verge of marrying a poor man. I guess I'll give up the cave." If the view had been remarkable from the trail, it was marvelous from the little eminence which she had reached. She looked and looked, her eyes full of wonder. Away in the distance, a tiny stream fluttered its way over the brown side of the mountain, which the sun seemed to polish until it shone; while on the shadowed side, the pines took on a dark, heavy green, both sombre and beautiful. Below her, on the trail--but what was that? Coming over the top of a hilly rise, a little way below, was a man on a horse--then a second and a third, and finally a line of riders, so long a line that it suggested a regiment! Polly's mind worked quickly. There was but one explanation; Angel Gonzales was in the neighborhood, was on his way to rendezvous with Juan Pachuca, and without doubt this was Angel Gonzales, and these were his men. What should she do? They were coming very rapidly, and whatever was done would have to be done instantly. Her first thought was for Scott. He would be taken unaware. If she could only get to him--warn him--so that he could hide in the brush till the men had passed! Breathlessly, she began to climb down the cliff. She was badly frightened, her nerve was shaken and her strength seemed to be leaving her. She found herself slipping and sliding on the rock. Another look at the riders showed them very near--so near that her courage failed her. In a panic she began to climb again. She must reach the little cave before they saw her. She could not fall into the hands of Angel Gonzales. She caught her breath in little sobs, her heart seemed about to burst, every foot gained meant a desperate effort. She clutched at the tufts of mesquite that grew out of the rock and thanked Providence that her brown suit was so nearly the color of the cliff. Gasping and sobbing, she finally sank behind the mesquite bush which covered the cave. It was not really a cave, she discovered, but merely a crevice in the cliff, made into a little shelf by the rock which protruded above it, while the bush growing thickly in front of it gave it the look of a cave. It was, however, a shelter, and Polly crouched in it thankfully, breathing with difficulty and keeping one eye on the line of men filing along below her. They were a hard looking lot, clad in all sorts of clothes from uniforms to overalls. They seemed to her inexperienced eye innumerable; they were, perhaps, seventy-five or a hundred.