“I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notification.” Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky ledge, supporting himself by chemisal and brush-wood. The next moment Pedro stood beside the unconscious man. Then he looked cautiously around. The figure of his companion was lost in the shadow of the rocks above; only a slight crackle of brush betrayed his whereabouts. Suddenly Pedro flung his serape over the sleeper's head, and then threw his powerful frame and tremendous weight full upon Concho's upturned face, while his strong arms clasped the blanket-pinioned limbs of his victim. There was a momentary upheaval, a spasm, and a struggle; but the tightly-rolled blanket clung to the unfortunate man like cerements. There was no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was nothing to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two men darkly outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in each other's arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of Wiles in the brush above was distinctly audible. Gradually the struggles grew fainter. Then a whisper from the crags: “I can't see you. What are you doing?” “Watching!” “Sleeps he?” “He sleeps!” “Soundly?” “Soundly.” “After the manner of the dead?” “After the fashion of the dead!” The last tremor had ceased. Pedro rose as Wiles descended. “All is ready,” said Wiles; “you are a witness of my placing the notifications?” “I am a witness.” “But of this one?” pointing to Concho. “Shall we leave him here?” “A drunken imbecile,--why not?” Wiles turned his left eye on the speaker. They chanced to be standing nearly in the same attitude they had stood the preceding night. Pedro uttered a cry and an imprecation, “Carramba! Take your devil's eye from me! What see you? Eh,--what?” “Nothing, good Pedro,” said Wiles, turning his bland right cheek to Pedro. The infuriated and half-frightened ex-vaquero returned the long knife he had half-drawn from its sheath, and growled surlily: “Go on then! But keep thou on that side, and I will on this.” And so, side by side, listening, watching, distrustful of all things, but mainly of each other, they stole back and up into those shadows from which they might like evil spirits have been poetically evoked. A half hour passed, in which the east brightened, flashed, and again melted into gold. And then the sun came up haughtily, and a fog that had stolen across the summit in the night arose and fled up the mountain side, tearing its white robes in its guilty haste, and leaving them fluttering from tree and crag and scar. A thousand tiny blades, nestling in the crevices of rocks, nurtured in storms and rocked by the trade winds, stretched their wan and feeble arms toward Him; but Concho the strong, Concho the brave, Concho the light-hearted spake not nor stirred. CHAPTER IV WHO TOOK IT There was persistent neighing on the summit. Concho's horse wanted his breakfast.