"Quite, sir. The attack, if it comes, will be from below, as it was made once before."

Chris and Ned exchanged glances as they recalled all that they had seen and the result to the defenders, and a blank look of despair settled in their countenances.

As it happened the doctor was watching them keenly at the time, his breast full of anxiety for the lads about to be brought face to face with such grave peril, and he spoke out cheerfully as if in answer to the thoughts he had just read in their faces.

"Yes," he said, "but you forget. Those people had to defend themselves with stones. We have the best of modern firearms, and can deal out death and destruction to our enemies from a distance while we are sheltered and quite beyond their reach. Well, Wilton, what do you make out?"

"They are all gathered closely together, pretty well a hundred strong,"

was the reply, "and one man--the chief, I suppose--is haranguing the rest. He keeps on gesticulating and pointing down at the mules, and then waving his hands in different directions as if to show which way they ought to go."

"Well," said the doctor, "we must not stir until they move off. They evidently have not seen us, and they may after all believe the animals to be wild."

"Yes, sir; and it's no use to show ourselves till we are obliged. We'll drive the beasts right up the valley here as soon as the coast's clear, and then keep in hiding and try what a shot or two from where they don't show will act. If we bring down a man and a horse or two they may turn back in a state of superst.i.tious panic. It's a good deal to hope for, but it might turn out so."

"At any rate it's the best plan," said the doctor. "So be ready to act as soon as the enemy disappears, and then we must pray for time."

Indian palavers are long and tedious, and the chief addressing the tribe talked for long enough, and was succeeded, so Wilton reported, by others, during all which time the watchers kept carefully out of sight and waited in a state of suspense that was almost unbearable.

"At last!" cried the doctor, as the body of hors.e.m.e.n began to move off.

"Watch them carefully, Wilton, and see if you can make out how they are armed."

"That's plain enough," said the member of the party addressed; "they nearly all have long spears."

"That means bows and arrows as well, I should say," cried Griggs.

"Indians who carry spears have not learned to use rifles, as a rule.

Hah! There they go, riding straight back from the edge. I shouldn't wonder if they have a long distance to go, right back over a plain, before they can get round the mountains. They must come by the same gulch as we did, and perhaps they've got to find it first."

"Think so?" said Bourne, putting the question that was on Chris's lips.

"They may be thoroughly acquainted with all this place."

"It's just as likely that they've never looked down into it before,"

said Griggs. "They belong to a roving band, and the country here is very big."

"Ah, there goes the last of them," cried Wilton, closing and shutting up the gla.s.ses.

"Give them a few minutes' law," cried the doctor, "just to make sure that they have gone. Then down to the camp as quickly as possible, load up, and bring everything up to the foot of the slope, unload, and I'll drive the poor brutes up to the other end while you folks get the stores under cover."

"But suppose the enemy come while you are away doing the driving?" cried Chris excitedly.

"We'll suppose nothing of the sort, my boy," said the doctor sternly.

Then with a pleasant smile, "If they do come while I'm away you'll all have to cover me with your rifles while I fight my way back. Now then, time's up. Down with you, and away."

As soon as they could get clear of the ruins there was a rush made for the camp, the grazing animals being driven before them to where the stores were heaped, and going quietly enough, a.s.sociating the sacks and barrels with feeding-time, though fated to be neglected!

The stores once reached, hot and nervous work began, in which Chris had no share, his duty being to mount his mustang and act the part of scout.

His instructions were very few; he knew what to do. That was to ride back to the gulch, and select a good spot, one which combined two advantages, commanding a far-reaching view down the wild approach, while affording good cover and concealment for him.

He started at once, riding off and giving two good long earnest looks at the busy party placing their loads on the mules' backs.

Then a turn amongst the rocks hid him from sight, and the boy felt his heart sink, in spite of the way in which he braced himself up for his task, for the gulch looked more and more dark and forbidding as he rode on, the sides closed in closer, it seemed, than they had been when he came, and as he strained his eyes forward along the trackless way, bush after bush and rock after rock in the distance sent his heart, as it were, with a bound to his throat, so nearly did his imagination make these objects approach the aspect of savage Indians riding slowly towards him.

But a second glance generally resolved them into what they were, fancy paintings, and he bit his lips fiercely with annoyance as he called himself coward and one quite unfit for such a task.

He had ridden onward for some time before he found a post that seemed in any way suitable, for the gulch turned and doubled and zigzagged here and there in a way that gave him sadly shortened views, and he was at last about to turn back to the best place he had pa.s.sed, bad as it was, when he recognised a corner in front as being formed by a rock that he remembered seeing for long enough on their approach, one that never seemed to get any nearer, and to his joy when he now reached it he found everything he desired--command of the gulch for quite a mile, plenty of cover to hide him and his pony from the view of those who came along, and, what was very acceptable then, a tiny basin of pure cold water in which his mustang gladly plunged its muzzle for a long, deep drink.

Then with a sigh of relief the scout took up his position to watch for the coming danger, knowing as he did that he had only to draw back a few yards for the great elbow-like rock to cover his retreat so that he could hurry away with the warning of danger and give all time to seek the cells that they were to defend.

"They ought to have loaded up by now," he said to himself, "and all has turned out splendidly, while perhaps after all the Indians may never find this deep, dark gulch. It was only by accident that we did."

Chris had just comforted himself with this notion when a horrible thought a.s.sailed him. It was this--

All the way he came he had been keeping up a good lookout in front for the approaching danger, and had never once thought of looking up to right or left for some narrow side valley or gash by which the danger might suddenly descend into the narrow way.

The thought was so terrible that he turned cold and looked back, half-expecting to see a group of the bronze warriors in his rear; and then his too busy imagination pictured more, the whole band in fact riding down by the gash in the rocks that he ought to have seen, and stealthily coming on to surprise those whom it had been his duty to save.

For some minutes his fancy gained ground to such an extent that the boy was completely unnerved. And no wonder, for the gloom of the great gulch with its perpendicular sides towering up to a vast height, the solitary grandeur, the silence, and the oppression wrought by the tremendous nature of his task, began to be more than his young nature could bear.

For some little time he sank into a state of despair. To use his own words, in which he thought of his brain power as something mechanical that had been wound up, his head seemed as if it would not "go."

In fact, to use a homely phrase, he was so prostrated by the thought that, in spite of his care and the stern duties of the task that he had been set to do, he had pa.s.sed some side opening by which the Indians might come down and attack the unarmed camp, that he wanted "shaking up"

to bring him to himself.

He had that very shaking up literally, for all at once his pony stretched out its neck, spread its legs widely, and gave itself a violent shake, one which threatened to dislodge the saddle before the beast subsided, and Chris settled himself again in his seat.

"It's all fancy," he said to himself; "I must have seen such a gorge or ravine if there had been one. The Indians must come along here in front. Mounted men can't ride down precipitous slopes."

With this thought to comfort him the boy sat watching the open part in front from his cover, perfectly satisfied that the only portions of him visible to a coming enemy were his face and hat, while to add to his protection, in case any of the Indians' advance-guard should suddenly ride into sight, Chris dismounted, cut a few tufts of heather-like brush, and stuck them at random through the band of his soft felt covering.

"There," he said in a satisfied way, as he replaced his hat, "that will look at a distance as if it were growing. I've a good mind to rub my face with mud."

Whether he would have so disfigured himself is doubtful, but certainly he could not, for there was no mud, nothing but a little beautifully clean sand in the bottom of the rock-pool into which the falling water splashed.

So Chris sat there thinking and straining his eyes along the narrow gulch, seeing no Indians, but the bright light on the tops of the rocky sides, while the gulch itself, always gloomy, now began to darken as if it were being gradually filled up with a flood of black velvet in a liquid state.

The pony dropped its head more and more; not to browse, for the bit held him a prisoner from that, but because it was an easy position, and in the silence Chris listened to the heavy breathing of the animal and felt the action of its sides as they rose and sank.

"They ought to have got all the stores into the cells by this time,"

thought Chris. "I wish I could have helped. It seems so lazy just sitting here. But of course it makes them feel safer. But what a horrible nuisance it is for Indians to be coming to disturb us. I hope it won't come to a fight. How horrible to have to shoot them!--Much more horrible for them to shoot us."

Chris's thoughts became less active, and then concentrated themselves upon the extremity of his eye scope, where he believed that he saw a mounted man standing where there was nothing before.

"Pooh! Only a rock," muttered the boy, after a long and careful inspection. "But how fast it's getting dark. I shan't be able to see any enemy soon, and what am I to do then, for I shan't be able to see anything at all? Why, nothing was said about that," he thought, "not a word. I didn't think about being in such a position, and I'm sure father didn't, or he would have spoken. Now, what would he say to me, I wonder? Something about using my own discretion and acting for the best. Now, what would be the best?"

Chris set his teeth and thought hard so as to decide what would be the proper thing to do.

"Why, it's all simple enough," he said to himself at last. "I'm posted here to give them warning when the Indians are coming. Well, if it's too dark for me to see them coming I can't give any notice, and if I can't do what I'm sent here for I should be better back at the camp."