oned the Kansan. "Tain't good for you to
move around much."

"It was worth it," whispered Eddie. "Say, but that was some scrap. You
got your nerve standin' up there against the bunch of 'em; but if you
hadn't they'd have rushed us and some of 'em would a-got in."

"Funny the boys don't come," said Billy.

"Yes," replied Eddie, with a sigh; "it's milkin' time now, an' I
figgered on goin' to Shawnee this evenin'. Them's nice cookies, maw.
I--"

Billy Byrne was bending low to catch his feeble words, and when the
voice trailed out into nothingness he lowered the tousled red head to
the hard earth and turned away.

Could it be that the thing which glistened on the eyelid of the toughest
guy on the West Side was a tear?

The afternoon waned and night came, but it brought to Billy Byrne
neither renewed attack nor succor. The bullet which had dropped him
momentarily had but creased his forehead. Aside from the fact that he
was blood covered from the wound it had inconvenienced him in no way,
and now that darkness had fallen he commenced to plan upon leaving the
shelter.

First he transferred Eddie's ammunition to his own person, and such
valuables and trinkets as he thought "maw" might be glad to have, then
he removed the breechblock from Eddie's carbine and stuck it in his
pocket that the weapon might be valueless to the Indians when they found
it.

"Sorry I can't bury you old man," was Billy's parting comment, as he
climbed over the breastwork and melted into the night.

Billy Byrne moved cautiously through the darkness, and he moved not in
the direction of escape and safety but directly up the canyon in the way
that the village of the Pimans lay.

Soon he heard the sound of voices and shortly after saw the light of
cook fires playing upon bronzed faces and upon the fronts of low huts.
Some women were moaning and wailing. Billy guessed that they mourned for
those whom his bullets had found earlier in the day. In the darkness of
the night, far up among the rough, forbidding mountains it was all very
weird and uncanny.

Billy crept closer to the village. Shelter was abundant. He saw no sign
of sentry and wondered why they should be so lax in the face of almost
certain attack. Then it occurred to him that possibly the firing he and
Eddie had heard earlier in the day far down among the foothills might
have meant the extermination of the Americans from El Orobo.

"Well, I'll be next then," mused Billy, and wormed c