nty
Fee with the next train down the trail an' go to Spanish bull fightin'.
He's just cut out for that, begorra; fur he rides like a Comanche. It ud
be a sort av disgrace to the bull though. I've got nothin' agin bulls."

"O'mie, I don't understand; but let's keep still. Some day when he gets
so drunk he'll kill one of the grand jury, maybe the rest of them and
the coroner can indict him for something."

We lay still in the warm water. Sometimes now in the lazy hot August
afternoons I can hear the rippling song of the Neosho as it prattled and
gurgled on its way. Suddenly O'mie gave a start and in a voice low and
even but intense he exclaimed:

"For the Lord's sake, wud ye look at that? And kape still as a snake
while you're doin' it."

Lying perfectly still, I looked keenly about me, seeing nothing unusual.

"Look up across yonder an' don't bat an eye," said O'mie, low as a
whisper.

I looked up toward the Hermit's Cave. Sitting on a point of rock
overhanging the river was an Indian. His back was toward us and his
brilliant red blanket had a white circle in the centre.

"He's not seen us, or he'd niver set out there like that," and O'mie
breathed easier. "He could put an arrow through us here as aisy as to
snap a string, an' nobody'd live to tell the tale. Phil Bar'net, he's
kapin' den in that cave, an' the devil must have showed him how to git
up there."

A shout up-stream told of other boys coming down to our swimming place.
You have seen a humming bird dart out of sight. So the Indian on the
rock far above us vanished at that sound.

"That's Bill Mead comin'; I know his whoop. I wish I knew which side av
that Injun's head his eyes is fastened on," said O'mie, still motionless
in the water. "If he's watchin' us up there, I'm a turtle till the sun
goes down."

A low peal of thunder rolled out of the west and a heavy black cloud
swept suddenly over the sun. The blue shadow of the bluff fell upon the
Neosho and under its friendly cover we scrambled into our clothes and
scudded out of sight among the trees that covered the east bottom land.

"Now, how did he ever get to that place, O'mie?" I questioned.

"I don't know. But if he can get there, I can too."

Poor O'mie! he did not know how true a prophecy he was uttering.

"Let's kape this to oursilves, Phil," counselled my companion. "If too
many knows it Tell may lose another pony, or somebody's dead dog may
float down the stream like the ould hermit did