"Then my husband said to me: 'Mary, you've got to stay here till I go to Antelope Peak and bring up Johnson, the station-keeper. You can't go with me, because it's full twenty-five miles, if not more, and you can't walk twenty-five steps. But those Mexicans are going to come back while I am gone--I know they are, because they haven't taken any plunder with them yet. They'll hide the horses in the mountains, most likely, and then go down to the river to look for me; and after that they'll come back here, and they'll look for us high and low.' "I knew that what he said was true, every word of it; and the only thing he could do was to find me a good hiding-place a good ways off from the house, but still near enough for me to see the house, and the window where the dead man lay. Well, first I watched David till out of sight, and then I watched the window, and then I watched and peered and looked on every side of me, till my eyes grew blind from the glaring sun and the shining sand. "All at once I heard some voices; and I almost went into a fit when I heard footsteps crunching nearer and nearer in the sand. They were the Mexicans, sure enough, coming up from the river, and passing within a few steps of my hiding-place. Both carried heavy cudgels, which they had brought with them from where they had been cutting wood in the morning. When they got near the house they stopped talking, and I saw them sneak up to it, and then vanish around the corner, as though to visit the kitchen first. A few minutes later I saw them come out of the bar-room, and, oh, heavens! I saw they were trying to follow my husband's footprints, that led directly to the verde-bush behind which I was hiding; but the wind had been blowing, and it seemed hard for them to follow the trail. Still they came nearer; and the terror and suspense, and the sickening fear that came over me, when I saw them brandishing their clubs and bringing them down occasionally on a clump of verde-bushes, wellnigh took what little sense and breath I had left, and I verily believe I should have screamed out in very horror, and so brought their murderous clubs on my head at once, to make an end of my misery, if I had had strength enough left to raise my voice. But I could neither move nor utter a sound; I could only strain my eyes to look. After a while they got tired of searching, and went back to the house, where they stood at the window a moment to look in on the dead man, as though to see if he had stirred; then they went in at the bar-room, and came out directly, loaded with plunder.