‘Miss de Castro, I will at once inform you the nature of the kindness your father did me, and you will then see why from being the accomplice and abetter of Blodget, I have become his enemy and your friend. Some three years since, I crossed the plains from Missouri. By the time we had crossed the mountains our teams had given out—our provisions were exhausted—and many of our people dead. It was at this time that your father, with a party, met with us, and not only aided us with mules and provisions, but remained several days attending my children who were prostrated by fever. It was only during my last visit to the Mission that I met your father and learned that his name was de Castro, and that you were his child. I managed to have word conveyed to him that his daughter was safe, and would soon be restored to his arms. I have now hastened here to carry you back, and devise means to give Blodget up to Justice. This cannot be done so speedily or easily as I could wish, for the villain is master of too many secrets involving perhaps the lives of members of my band, for me to proceed rashly in the matter. Meanwhile be cheerful, Alice will remain with you, and in a few days you will be with your father.’ Inez fervently thanked Jenkins, and throwing herself on her knees poured out her fervent thanks to that power that had shielded her from outrage worse than death. -------------- CHAPTER VIII The scene we are now about to describe was in a room of a hotel; the time, five o’clock in the morning—the persons present were Belcher Kay, Maretzo, and two or three other noisy and dissipated revellers, whose flushed countenances, blood-shot eyes, and other equally striking symptoms, showed plainly enough that they had been ‘making a night of it.’ Kay and the Italian appeared to be the most sober of the company, not that their potations had been less deep or frequent than their companions, but that constant practice had so inured them to the wine cup, that it was long ere they showed any ill-effects from it. They certainly were particularly noisy and merry, and their companions lent their aid to the conviviality, by knocking down everything the aforesaid said or did, in the most tumultuous manner. One individual, in the classic language of the drunkard, was ‘quite done up,’ and was stretched at full length upon the floor, under one of the tables, with his hat for a pillow, and a portion of the carpet for a coverlid; and every now and then he added to the general tumult by a loud snore of the most hoggish description.