Unfortunately, while uttering these words, Lanzi gave a triumphant glance in the direction of the corral; the Chief caught it, rushed to the door, and uttered a yell of disappointment on seeing the hole in the palisade; the truth flashed upon him. "Dog!" he yelled, and drawing his scalping knife, he hurled it furiously at his enemy. But the latter, who was watching him, dodged the missile, which struck into the wall a few inches from his head. Lanzi leaped over the bar, and rushed at Blue-fox. The Indians rose tumultuously, and seizing their arms, bounded like wild beasts in pursuit of the half-breed. The latter, on reaching the door of the corral, turned, fired his pistols among the crowd, leapt on his horse, and burying his spurs in its flanks, forced it to leap through the breach. At the same moment a horrible noise was heard behind him, the earth trembled, and a confused mass of stones, beams, and fragments of every description fell around the rider and his horse, which was maddened with terror. The Venta del Potrero was blown into the air, burying beneath its ruins the Apaches who had invaded it. Such was the trick Lanzi had promised himself to play on the Indians. We can now understand why he had insisted on Carmela setting off at full speed. By a singular piece of good fortune, neither the half-breed nor his horse was wounded; the mustang, with foaming nostrils, flew over the prairie as if winged, incessantly urged on by its rider, who excited it with spur and force, for he fancied he could hear behind him the gallop of another horse in pursuit. Unluckily the night was too dark for him to assure himself whether he were mistaken. CHAPTER XIX. THE CHASE. The reader will probably consider that the means employed by Lanzi to get rid of the Indians were somewhat violent, and that he should not have had recourse to them save in the utmost extremity. The justification of the half-breed is as simple as it is easy to give; the Indian braves, when they cross the Mexican border, indulge mercilessly in every possible riot, displaying the greatest cruelty toward the unhappy white men who fall into their hands, and for whom they testify a hatred which nothing can assuage. Lanzi's position, alone, without help to expect from anyone, in an isolated spot, in the power of some fifty demons without faith or law, was most critical; the more so, as the Apaches, once they had been excited by strong liquors, the abuse of which causes them a species of raving madness, would no longer have recognized any restraint; their sanguinary character would have regained the upper hand, and they would have indulged in the most unjustifiable cruelty, for the mere pleasure of making an enemy of their race suffer. The half-breed had, besides, peremptory reasons for behaving thus; he must, at all risks, ensure Carmela's safety, whom he had solemnly sworn to Tranquil to defend, even at the peril of his own life.