Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/36

14 and fell down a shallow precipice, carrying his master with him. Though the declivity was slight, the fall was yet so heavy that both arriero and mule lay at the bottom stunned and insensible for hours. As it chanced, however, this fall proved the means of their preservation: two of their ruthless and determined enemies had been upon their track, having heard the steps of the mule from a distance, and but for this accident the arriero would have been overtaken.

But their pursuers passed on in the darkness; and returned ere long, under the impression that they had been deceived. The light of morning discovered the arriero and his mule waking and stretching themselves—somewhat bruised, but with no bones broken.

Grateful for his late escape, our muleteer pressed on with fresh vigour—long-and toilsome though the stages were—till he arrived in the neighbourhood of the Mexican mountains; then he began to calculate the time when he might expect to arrive at his wished for destination in the capital.

For a considerable distance that mountain path abounds in intricate windings, which