The Intercepted Letter.

Colonel Miranda, having told the tale of his perilous escape, for a time remains silent and reflective. So does his listener. Both are thinking on the same subject—the villainy of Gil Uraga.

Hamersley first breaks silence, asking the question,—

“Did you get my letter?”

“What letter?”

“I wrote you only one. Now I think of it, you could not have received it. No. By the time it would reach Albuquerque, you must have been gone from there.”

“I got no letter from you, Don Francisco. You say you sent one. What was the nature of its contents?”

“Nothing of any importance. Merely to say that I was coming back to New Mexico, and hoped to find you in good health.”

“Did it particularise the time you expected to reach Albuquerque?”

“Yes; as far as I could fix that, if I remember rightly, it did.”

“And the route you were to take?”

“That too. When I wrote the letter I intended to make trial of a new trail lately discovered—up the Canadian, and touching the northern end of the Staked Plain. I did make trial of it, alas! with lamentable result. But why do you ask these questions, Colonel Miranda?”

The colonel does not make immediate answer. He appears more meditative than ever, as though some question has come before his mind calling for deliberate examination.

While he is thus occupied the ex-Ranger enters the room and sits down beside them. Walt is welcome. Indeed, Don Valerian had already designed calling him into their counsel. For an idea has occurred to the Mexican Colonel requiring the joint consideration of all three. Turning to the other two, he says,—

“I’ve been thinking a good deal about the attack on your caravan. The more I reflect on it the more I am led to believe that some of the Indians who plundered you were painted.”

“They were all painted,” is the reply of the young prairie merchant.

“True, Don Francisco; but that isn’t what I mean.”

“I reckon I knows what ye mean,” interposes the ex-Ranger, rising excitedly from his chair on hearing the Mexican’s remark. “It’s been my own suspeeshun all along. You know what I tolt ye, Frank?”

Hamersley looks interrogatively at his old comrade.

“Did I not say,” continues Wilder, “that I seed two men ’mong the Injuns wi’ ha’r upon thar faces? They wa’n’t Injuns; they war whites. A’n’t that what ye mean, Kurnel Meoranda?”

“Precisamente!” is the colonel’s reply.

The other two wait for him to continue on with the explanation Wilder has already surmised. Even the young prairie merchan............