eet
broad, jest givin' room enough fur the horses an' mules an' ourselves,
all so trim an' cosy, everythin' fittin' close an' tight in its place."

"It's a lot too close and tight for me, Giant!" exclaimed Will. "I've a
terrible fear that I'll go tumbling off the path and into the creek two
hundred feet below."

"Oh, no, you won't, young William. The people who fall off cliffs are
mighty few compared with them that git skeered 'bout it. Ef you feel
a-tall dizzy, jest ketch holt o' the tail o' that rear mule o' mine. He
won't kick, an' he won't mind it, a-tall, a-tall. Instead o' that it'll
give him a kind o' home-like feelin', bein' ez I've hung on to his tail
myself so many times when we wuz goin' along paths not more'n three
inches wide in the mountain side. You won't bother or upset him. The
biggest cannon that wuz ever forged couldn't blast him out o' the path."

Thus encouraged, young Clarke seized the tail of the mule, which plodded
unconcernedly on, and for the rest of the distance along the dizzying
heights he felt secure. Nevertheless his relief was great when they
emerged into the rough valley of which the Little Giant had spoken, and
yet more when, still pressing on, they came to the rocky and hilly
forest. Here they were all exhausted, animals and human beings alike,
and they stopped a long time in the shade of the trees.

At that point there was no sign of the valley from which they had fled,
unless one could infer its existence from the creek that flowed by.
Looking back, Will saw nothing but a mass of forest and mountain, and
then looking back a second time he saw rings of smoke rising from points
which he knew must be in their valley. He examined and counted them
through his glasses and described them to the hunter and the Little
Giant.

"The Sioux have come down and invaded our pleasant home," said Boyd.
"There's no doubt about it, and I can make a good guess that they're mad
clean through, because they found us gone. They may be signaling now to
another band to come up, and then they'll give chase. You've got to
know, Will, that nothing will make the Sioux pursue like the prospect of
scalps, white scalps. A Sioux warrior would be perfectly willing to go
on a month's trail if he found a white scalp at the end of it."

"They'll naturally think that we'll turn off toward the south so as to
hit the plains ez soon ez we kin," said the Little Giant.

"And for that reason, you think we should turn to t