He picked Myra up in his arms and swung her up without any apparent
effort on to the saddle of a mule which one of the men had led forward,
mounted another mule himself, and gave some rapid orders.

"Follow me and ride carefully, señorita, for there are some steep and
dangerous paths to negotiate," he called to Myra. "Mendoza will lead
your mule at the most perilous places. Avanzar!"

To anyone less accustomed to riding and to taking risks than Myra, that
night ride through the mountains of the Sierra Morena would have been a
blood-curdling and nerve-shattering experience. Often she had to guide
her mule along a rough path barely a couple of yards wide, with a sheer
drop of hundreds of feet on one side, a path where a stumble or a false
step on the part of the animal would have meant certain death.

Yet Myra was conscious of no sense of fear now, and the dangers only
made her pulse beat faster and stirred her blood. But it was no easy
task riding a mule along precipitous paths and keeping her seat while
slithering down slopes, clad as she was in only a filmy evening frock
and a fur coat, and she cried out in protest at last: "How much further, Señor Cojuelo? I cannot sit this ungainly brute
much longer in these clothes."