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[UNIVERSITY;


We had no time to dispute now; besides, almost any change from this toilsome and eternal run was a relief. What made things seem worse, however, this boy seemed to be leading us back again to The Forks. We were edging around at right angles with our pur suers. They could cut across if we kept on, and head us off. We were making more than a crescent ; the boy was leading us right back to the men we wished to escape.

Soon he went out on a point and stopped. He beckoned us to ride up. We did so. It seemed less than half a mile to a point we had passed less than an hour since, and, as far as we could see, there was only a slight depression between. The officer and his party soon came in sight. As they did so he raised his arm. We were not unobserved.

Klamat sat down to rest, and made signs that we should dismount. I looked at the Prince to see what he would do. He swung himself to the ground, looking tired and impatient, and we all did the same. The Doctor could not keep his feet, but lay down, helpless, on the brown bed of quills from the sugar- pines that clustered around and crowned the point where we had stopped to rest.

The officer and his men looked to their catenas ; each drew out a pistol, revolved the cylinder, settled the powder back in the tubes by striking the ivory handles gently on the saddle pommels, saw that each nipple still held its cap, and then spurred their mules down the hillside as if to cross the depression