"Be jabers! and the Indians have come at last!" Terence exclaimed, and they all three started at a run. Maud turned round and waved her hand to them, and then she and Ethel continued looking over the plain. At this moment they were joined on the tower by Mrs. Hardy and Sarah.

"It is all right," Charley, who was of an unexcitable temperament, said. "The Indians must be a long way off, or the girls would be waving to us to make haste. Take it easy; we shall want to keep our hands steady."

So they broke from the headlong speed at which they had started into a steady trot, which in five minutes brought them up to the house.

"What is it?" they exclaimed as they gained the top of the tower.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" Ethel said. "They have got all the animals."

"And I fear they have killed Gomez and Pedro," Mrs. Hardy added.

It was too evidently true. At a distance of six miles the boys could see a dark mass rapidly retreating, and numerous single specks could be seen hovering round them. Two miles from the house a single horseman was galloping wildly. The girls had already made him out to be Lopez.