Faster and faster under shouts and blows ran the camels, and for a time the boys had all they could do to retain their precarious seats. For a time Jepthah set their course well out into the desert, in order to avoid the jumbled mass of rocks and boulders lying at the foot of the Mountain Wall. But presently he headed again toward the great bulwark and the boys, following him, saw ahead a break appear in the wall. Narrower than the pass through which ran the Great Road, it seemed as their eyes pierced deeper with each forward lurch of the camels that it was choked with fallen boulders over which it would be difficult to make their way. But even as this thought entered their minds, and while yet they were a matter of a hundred yards distant, with Jepthah and Amonasis somewhat nearer, around the nearest bend of this pass came a fleeing mass of horsemen. Down toward the desert leaped the horses, surefooted as goats, over the mass of boulders and debris. Involuntarily, Frank and Jack pulled up their camels, whose great padded hoofs slid in the sand as they braced their legs to come to a halt. Then they saw Jepthah turn in his saddle and wave wildly for them to approach, after which he and Amonasis flung themselves forward, unlimbering their rifles as they ran. At the same time, from beyond the bend in the pass, came the rattle of rifles, and this time three horses with empty saddles and a fourth dragging the body of a fallen man whose foot was caught in the saddle and who bumped sickeningly over the rocks, came down the rock-choked pass. In one illuminating flash the meaning of the situation appeared to Jack. Shouting across the gap separating him from Frank, racing beside him, he called: “Rebels followed ’em into the pass and were ambushed, I’ll bet.” Frank made no answer. His face was white. Undoubtedly, he thought, Jack had read the situation aright. Then what of Bob? Had he been killed in the fighting? Or had his captors escaped with him into the interior? Another man and another tumbled down the pass, his horse taking the rocks at a sickening pace, until ten were gathered at the foot, where Jepthah and Amonasis could be seen rallying them. Just as Frank and Jack gained the group, one more revolutionary turned the bend, from beyond which the sound of firing had drawn closer, and came down the pass. The boys gasped in mingled admiration of his daring horsemanship and fear for him. He sat loosely in his saddle, the reins lying on his horse’s neck, leaving the sagacious animal to pick his own way over the rock-strewn course. Half-turned about, he held rifle to shoulder. Not thirty feet behind him another horseman suddenly appeared rounding the sharp turn in the pass, and the rifle of the revolutionary cracked and almost simultaneously the other pitched from his saddle. A cheer went up from those in the plain, and with a wave of the hand in acknowledgment, the lone revolutionary continued the descent.