The boys and Terence stood speechless with dismay. The Irishman was the first to find his tongue,

"Och, the thundering villains!" he exclaimed; "the heathen thieves! And to think that not one of us was there to give them a bating."

"What will papa say?" Hubert ejaculated.

Charley said nothing, but looked frowningly, with tightly closed lips, after the distant mass, while his hands closed upon his carbine. "How was it, Maud?" he asked at length.

"I was downstairs," Maud said, "when Ethel, who had just gone up, called down, 'Come up, Maud, quickly; I think that something's the matter.' I ran up the steps, and I saw our animals a long way off, nearly four miles, and I saw a black mass of something going along fast toward them from the left. They were rather nearer to us than the cattle were, and were in one of the slopes of the ground, so that they would not have been seen by any one with the cattle; then, as they got quite near the animals, I saw a sudden stir. The beasts began to gallop away, and three black specks--who, I suppose, were the men--separated themselves from them and went off sideways. One seemed to get a start of the other two. These were cut off by the black mass, and I did not see anything more of them. Lopez got away; and though some of the others rode after him for about a mile, they could not overtake him. Directly I saw what it was, I caught up the gun and fired, and Ethel ran up the flag. That's all I saw."