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74 A long pause followed. Where are we?" I at last asked.

"We ought to be only a mile and a half from the Desierto. We have kept on the right road; but I have strong fears that we have got entangled in a ravine, from which escape is almost impossible amid this darkness. In a few hours, should the rain continue, this ravine will be no longer a road, but a torrent, that will carry us along on its rushing waters like dead leaves. God succor our poor souls!" He crossed himself devoutly.

I had seen too often in America torrents suddenly swollen by thunder-showers to such a degree as to up root trees a hundred years old, and carry down rocks, to doubt for a moment the imminent danger of which I had been apprised by Fray Serapio. To this disheartening reply I had but one answer to make—we must have a fire, at any price. Unluckily, the monk had left his flint and steel with the student. I was not discouraged, however; and, unwilling to throw away any chance of extricating ourselves from our disagreeable position, I alighted from my horse, took in one of my hands the reata attached to the neck of the animal, and with the other tried to guide myself while holding on to the rocks. I was not long in finding my progress stopped by a precipitous bluff. I tried the other side; always a perpendicular wall of rock. Forced at last to stop after having unrolled the reata to its utmost length, I came back step by step to my horse, and, gathering it up again in my hand, remounted.

"This ravine is in truth a prison," said I.

"It is not the torrent alone that I fear," replied the monk. "Even if we escape drowning, we may be