She led the way at break-neck speed through chaparral, over gullies, up rocky heights that would have taxed the climbing abilities of a goat, down a long, thickly-shrubbed glade, to a ragged opening under a cliff. It was the exit through which, the night of the storm, Farquharson and Brown, with Yoscolo and Stanislaus, had passed from the cave which gave refuge to Carmelita and her dueña. "Within and quickly!" called the girl, driving straight through the natural door. The peons thronged after her. Light made its way into the many-chambered cavern through the innumerable rifts in the rocky mountain side. Carmelita led the way to the lower entrance where the carreta had come to grief. Here they waited, grim figures in the twilight silence. "Some are coming," Enrico whispered after a moment. They saw many forms approaching. The Indians, carrying the girls in their arms, stalked in single file, each stepping with precision in the footprints of his predecessor, to give the impression that but one man had passed that way. The semidarkness of the cave prevented their seeing anyone inside. "Drop your rifles! Up with your hands!" Carmelita's voice gathered volume from the great spaces behind. Stanislaus and his men were petrified. "Drop your rifles! Up with your hands!" repeated the girl. "Stanislaus, show yourself to be a joker. Make a jest!" mocked old Enrico. The renegades dropped the peonas; the most of them threw away their weapons; all fled precipitately. Thus ended the memorable raid of Stanislaus, the Indian renegade, unaccountably put to rout by a delicately reared señorita. Carmelita and the peons quickly gathered around the neophytes. Despite the severe experience of the day not one of the girls had received injury. Amid tears and laughter they loudly expressed their gratitude to their deliverers. Their vociferations were silenced by the sound of musketry discharge, in the direction toward which Stanislaus and his men had gone. Many of the peons, mad with thirst of slaughter, tore thitherward. Soon musketry rattled again, this time much nearer the cave. The girl, leaving Enrico and a guard in charge of the peonas, rode after the men. She climbed a steep hill. Looking over a crag into the valley below, she saw that which clutched her heart. Captain Morando lay wounded there. Stanislaus, knife in hand, was leaping down a narrow path toward him. The soldier's pistol was lying several feet away. He attempted to reach it, but ineffectually. The Indian growled wolf-like as he neared his enemy. "Stop!" shrieked Carmelita, springing from her horse and madly bounding down the path. "You villain!" she flung at Stanislaus, as she faced him. Except for the knife he was unarmed. He saw that her hands were empty. She had left her rifle on the saddle. He jumped toward her. "Up the path, for God's sake, Carmelita!" weakly cried the stricken Captain. "Never! I'll die first!"