"Simply that from all I had heard of you and your band. I was afraid to encounter you on uneven terms, and when I heard you coming, I hid," replied Nat.
"That is it, is it? Well, I have the honor to inform you that I don't believe a word of your story. Do you know what we did with spies when I was fighting on the border?"
Nat shook his head. The colonel's eyelids narrowed into two little slits through which his dark orbs glinted flintily.
For a moment Nat thought he was about to share the same fate. The colonel raised his rifle menacingly and glanced along the sights. But he lowered it the next minute and spoke again.
"Since you are so anxious to see our fort I shall gratify your wishes," he said. "Manuello, just take a turn or two about that boy and we'll take him home with us; he'll be better game than that lion yonder."
Manuello nimbly tumbled off his horse, and in a trice had Nat bound with his rawhide lariat. The boy was so securely bundled in it that only his legs could move.
"Good!" approvingly said the colonel as he gazed at the tightly tied captive, "it would be folly to take chances with these slippery Americanos."
Manuello now remounted, and taking a half-hitch with the loose end of his lariat about the saddle horn, he dug his spurs into his pony. The little animal leaped forward, almost jerking Nat from his feet. He only remained upright with an effort.
"Be careful, Manuello," warned the colonel, "he is too valuable a prize to damage."
Every step was painful to Nat, bruised as he was, and weak from hunger and thirst as well, but he pluckily gave no sign. He had deduced from the fresh condition of his captors' ponies that they could not have been ridden far. This argued that it would not be long before they reached the outlaws' fortress.
In this surmise he was correct. The trail, after winding among chaparral and madrone, plunged abruptly down and entered the gloomy defile he had noticed when he first made up his mind that he was lost. Viewed closely the place was even more sinister than it had seemed at a distance. Hardly a tree grew on its rugged sides, which were of a reddish brown rock. It seemed as if they had been, at some remote period, seared with tremendous fires.