one of the heavy pieces of cloth, whose
texture, like the celebrated blankets of the Navajoe Indians, was almost
close enough to be waterproof. He paused for a minute to adjust the
folds, and then, forgetful of the danger he had run a short time before,
he stepped hastily across the room, and stooping down flung the blanket
over the blaze so as to enclose it entirely.

The effect was instantaneous. The room was wrapped in darkness as dense
as that outside, though the consequences of the act promised to be
anything but pleasant in the course of a few minutes.

"Now, Avon, is your time!" called the captain in an undertone.

"I'm off; good-by," came from the gloom near the door, where the sounds
showed that he was engaged in raising the ponderous bar from its
sockets.

Captain Shirril stepped hurriedly to the spot, and found the door closed
but unfastened. Even in his haste the youth did not forget to shut it
behind him, leaving to his friends the duty of securing it in place.

"He is gone; God be with him!" he whispered to his wife and servant, who
with painfully throbbing hearts had stepped to his side.

While speaking, he refastened the structure, and in less time than it
has taken to tell it everything inside was as before, with the exception
that where there had been four persons, there were now only three.

All forgot their own danger for the moment in their anxiety for the
youth, who had so eagerly risked his own life to save them from death.

Bending his head, the captain held his ear against the tiny opening
through which the latchkey had been drawn earlier in the evening, when
the heavy bar was put in place. The Texan was listening with all the
intentness possible.

"It seems impossible that he should get away," was his thought, "and yet
the very boldness of his plan may give it success."

The shot from within the cabin, followed so soon by the complete
darkening of the interior, must have caused some confusion among the
Comanches, for otherwise Avon would have been shot or captured the
moment he stepped outside of the cabin.

For the space of two or three seconds Captain Shirril absolutely heard
nothing, except the soft sighing of the night wind among the mesquite
bushes near at hand. The stillness could not have been more profound had
every living thing been moved to a distance of a hundred miles.

He had listened only a minute or two, however, when he heard a warrior
run rapidly around the buildi