cropping the rich pasture. Erect forms
are seen standing at intervals along the line. These are the guards of
the caballada.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THREE DAYS IN THE TRAP.

Our attention was now turned to our own situation. Dangers and
difficulties suddenly presented themselves to our minds.

"What if they should stay here to hunt?"

The thought seemed to occur to all of us at the same instant, and we
faced each other with looks of apprehension and dismay.

"It is not improbable," said Seguin, in a low and emphatic voice. "It
is plain they have no supply of meat, and how are they to pass to the
south without it? They must hunt here or elsewhere. Why not here?"

"If so, we're in a nice trap!" interrupted a hunter, pointing first to
the embouchure of the defile and then to the mountain. "How are we to
get out? I'd like to know that."

Our eyes followed the direction indicated by the speaker. In front of
the ravine in which we were, extended the line of the Indian camp, not a
hundred yards distant from the rocks that lay around its entrance.
There was an Indian sentinel still nearer; but it would be impossible to
pass out, even were he asleep, without encountering the dogs that
prowled in numbers around the camp.

Behind us, the mountain rose vertically like a wall. It was plainly
impassable. We were fairly "in the trap."

"Carrai!" exclaimed one of the men, "we will die of hunger and thirst if
they stay to hunt!"

"We may die sooner," rejoined another, "if they take a notion in their
heads to wander up the gully."

This was not improbable, though it was but little likely. The ravine
was a sort of _cul de sac_, that entered the mountain in a slanting
direction, and ended at the bottom of the cliff. There was no object to
attract our enemies into it, unless indeed they might come up in search
of pinon nuts. Some of their dogs, too, might wander up, hunting for
food, or attracted by the scent of our horses. These were
probabilities, and we trembled as each of them was suggested.

"If they do not find us," said Seguin, encouragingly, "we may live for a
day or two on the pinons. When these fail us, one of our horses must be
killed. How much water have we?"

"Thank our luck, captain, the gourds are nearly full."

"But our poor animals must suffer."

"There is no danger of thirst," said El Sol, looking downward, "while
these last;" and he struck with his foot a large round mass that grew