It will take us a little out of our way, and give you some extra work.

You won't mind that, my pet?
I know you won't." The mare wheels round at a slight pressure upon the rein; and then commenced her canter in the direction of the soaring flock.
A mile is passed over, and the birds are brought near; but still the object attracting them cannot be seen.

It may be down among the artemisias, or perhaps behind a large yucca, whose dark whorl rises several feet above the sage, and over which the vultures are wheeling.
As the rider of Lolita arrives within gun-shot distance of the yucca-tree she checks the mustang to a slower pace--to a walk in short.
In the spectacle of death, in the throes and struggles of an expiring creature, even though it be but a dumb brute, there is something that never fails to excite commiseration, mingled with a feeling of awe.
This last has come over the young girl, as she draws near the spot where the birds are seen circling.
It has not occurred to her that the cause of their presence may be a human being, though it is a remembrance of this kind that now prompts her to ride forward reflectively.

For once in her life, with others around her who were near and dear, she has been herself an object of like eager solicitude to a flock of zopilotes.
But she has not the slightest suspicion of its being a human creature that causes their gathering now.

There, upon the Llano Estacado, so rarely trodden by human feet, and even shunned by almost every species of animal, she could not.
As she draws still nearer, a black disc, dimly outlined against the dark green leaves of the yucca, upon scrutiny, betrays the form of a bird, itself a vulture.