A fortnight passed without the slightest incident or alarm. The rules which Mr. Hardy had laid down were strictly observed. The sheep and cattle were carefully secured at night; two or three of the native dogs were fastened up, down at the fold; one of the mastiffs was kept at the men's hut, while the other's kennel was placed by the house; the retrievers, as usual, sleeping indoors. A flagstaff was erected upon the lookout, with a red flag in readiness to be run up to summon those who might be away on the plain, and a gun was kept loaded to call attention to the signal. The boys, when they went out for their rides, carried their carbines instead of their guns. The girls fulfilled the duties of lookouts, going up every half-hour from daybreak to dusk; and the call of "Sister Anne, do you see horsemen?" was invariably answered in the negative. One day, however, Mr. Hardy had ridden over to Canterbury to arrange with his friends about hiring shearers from Rosario for the united flocks. The boys and Terence were in the fields plowing, at a distance of half a mile from the house, when they were startled by the sound of a gun. Looking round, they saw both the girls standing upon the tower: Maud had just fired the gun, and Ethel was pulling up the flag. "Be jabers! and the Indians have come at last!" Terence exclaimed, and they all three started at a run. Maud turned round and waved her hand to them, and then she and Ethel continued looking over the plain. At this moment they were joined on the tower by Mrs. Hardy and Sarah. "It is all right," Charley, who was of an unexcitable temperament, said. "The Indians must be a long way off, or the girls would be waving to us to make haste. Take it easy; we shall want to keep our hands steady." So they broke from the headlong speed at which they had started into a steady trot, which in five minutes brought them up to the house. "What is it?" they exclaimed as they gained the top of the tower. "Oh, dear, oh, dear!" Ethel said. "They have got all the animals." "And I fear they have killed Gomez and Pedro," Mrs. Hardy added. It was too evidently true. At a distance of six miles the boys could see a dark mass rapidly retreating, and numerous single specks could be seen hovering round them. Two miles from the house a single horseman was galloping wildly. The girls had already made him out to be Lopez. The boys and Terence stood speechless with dismay. The Irishman was the first to find his tongue. "Och, the thundering villains!" he exclaimed; "the heathen thieves! And to think that not one of us was there to give them a bating." "What will papa say?" Hubert ejaculated. Charley said nothing, but looked frowningly, with tightly closed lips, after the distant mass, while his hands closed upon his carbine. "How was it, Maud?" he asked at length.