Throughout the ride the imaginations of officers and men
were depicting the scenes they feared were being enacted in the
valley, or which might take place should they fail to arrive in time
to prevent.
It is needless to say, perhaps, that the one person about whom the
thoughts of the men composing the rescuing party centred was the
gentle, bright, and pretty Brenda. To think of her falling into the
hands of the merciless Apaches was almost maddening.
On and on rode the column, the men giving their panting steeds no more
rest than the nature of the road and the success of the expedition
required. At last we reached the spur of the range behind which lay
Skull Valley. We skirted it, and with anxious eyes sought through the
darkness the place where the ranch buildings should be. All was
silence. No report of fire-arms or whoop of savages disturbed the
quiet of the valley.
Ascending a swell in the surface of the ground we saw that all the
buildings had disappeared, nothing meeting our anxious gaze but beds
of lurid coals, occasionally fanned into a red glow by the
intermittent night breeze.
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