A dark face peered into his. A tall Indian was bending over him. In the grim painted lineaments he recognised, to his astonishment, the countenance of War Wolf. "Ha, Golden Face. You feel better now? Good! We will start." He made no reply. Glancing around him, he noted that the warriors were making their preparations to move. The ponies, which had been grazing all ready saddled, were caught; and at a sign from War Wolf two of the Indians proceeded to loosen the lariat rope in such wise as to allow him the use of his legs. "Now, mount," said one of them, as his fellow led a pony alongside of the captive, who surveyed his steed designate with a dubious air. "That sheep isn't up to my weight," he said. "He will carry you as far as needful," was the reply, ominous in its grim brevity. "Quick, mount." As he turned to obey a wild thought rushed through the adventurer's mind. Could he not seize the opportunity to make a dash for it? His wily guards must have read his thoughts, for, catching his eye, they shook their heads with a ferocious grin. Then with a raw hide thong they secured their prisoner's feet beneath the horse's belly, and one of them winding the end of the lariat rope which served as a bridle round his hand, the band started. Ever with a keen eye to opportunity, Vipan noted two things--one that the band had undergone diminution by at least half its original number, the other that they were travelling almost due north-east. The halt had been made not many miles from the fatal gorge, whose frowning entrance he could just see as he turned his head. No one could be more thoroughly aware than himself of the desperate strait into which he had fallen. He had witnessed more than one instance of men taking their own lives at the last critical moment to avoid capture and its inevitable sequel, a lingering death amid tortures too horrible to name. And now even that alternative was denied to him. The opportunity was past and gone. "Ha, Golden Face," said War Wolf, ranging his horse alongside his prisoner. "You thought I should have been hung before this." "Well, yes, I did. How did you manage to get clear?" Then the savage, in fits of laughter, narrated all that had befallen him at Fort Price; how, after a time, he had been allowed a certain amount of guarded liberty, and how he had deftly managed to disarm the sentry and make his escape. It was a bold exploit, and so his listener candidly told him. "Ha!" cried the warrior, chuckling and swelling with inflated vanity, "I am a man. Even the stone walls of the Mehneaska cannot hold me. I laugh, and down they go!"