d he whispered:

"He says there's a sentinel down there in the square."

At this, Maiden's Heart bobbed his head two or three times, and,
motioning to us to crouch down, he crept quietly over to the inner wall
of the ramparts and looked down.

"What shall we say we came for?" I whispered, quickly.

"I don't know," said Rectus.

"Well, we must think of something," I said, "or we shall look like
fools."

But before he had time to think, Maiden's Heart crept back. He put his
finger on his lips, and, beckoning us to follow him, he led the way to a
corner of the fort near one of the lookout towers. We followed as
quietly as we could, and then we all three slipped into the narrow
entrance to the tower, the Indian motioning us to go first. When we two
stood inside of the little round tower, old Maiden's Heart planted
himself before us in the passage, and waited to hear what we had to say.

But we couldn't think of anything to say. Directly, however, I thought I
must do something, so I whispered to the Indian:

"Does the sentry ever come up here?"

He seemed to catch my meaning.

"I go watch," he said. "Come back. Tell you." And off he stole, making
no more noise than a cat.

"Bother on him!" said Rectus. "If I'd known he was up here, I would
never have come."

"I reckon not," said I. "But now that we have come, what are we going to
do or say? That fellow evidently thinks we have some big project on
hand, and he's ready to help us; we must be careful, or he'll rush down
and murder the sentinel."

"I'm sure I don't know what to say to him," said Rectus. "We ought to
have thought of this before. I suppose it would be of no use to mention
my poster to him."

"No, indeed," said I; "he'd never understand that. And, besides, there's
a man down there. Let's peep out and see what he's doing."

So we crept to the entrance of the passage, and saw Maiden's Heart,
crouched near the top of the inclined plane which serves as a stairway
from the square to the ramparts, and looking over the low wall,
evidently watching the sentry.

"I'll tell you what let's do," said Rectus. "Let's make a rush for our
rope, and get out of this."

"No, sir!" said I. "We'd break our necks if we tried to hurry down that
rope. Don't think of anything of that kind. And, besides, we couldn't
both get down before he'd see us."

In a few minutes, Maiden's Heart crept quickly back to us, and seemed
surprised that we had left our hiding-place. He