CHAPTER V.
When Coronado regained a portion of the senses which had been throttled out of him, he discovered Texas Smith standing by his side, and two dead men lying near, all rather vaguely seen at first through his dizziness and the moonlight.
"What does this mean ?" he gasped, getting on his hands and knees, and then on his feet.

"Who has been assassinating ?" The borderer, who, instead of helping his employer to rise, was coolly reloading his rifle, did not immediately reply.

As the shaken and somewhat unmanned Coronado looked at him, he was afraid of him.

The moonlight made Smith's sallow, disfigured face so much more ghastly than usual, that he had the air of a ghoul or vampyre.

And when, after carefully capping his piece, he drawled forth the word "Patchies," his harsh, croaking voice had an unwholesome, unhuman sound, as if it were indeed the utterance of a feeder upon corpses.
"Apaches!" said Coronado.