of at least a hundred Indians burst
into view about a mile below.

"They halted rather than run the risk of passing us during the storm,"
he said half to himself. "Inasmuch as the slowest of that crowd can
travel two yards to our one we are likely to be overhauled in a very
short time."

"It is the end," Poyor said gravely. "There is little chance of escape,
and none of running from them."

"Do you propose that we shall stand and fight?" Cummings asked.

"There is nothing else to be done."

"But we have no show against them."

"As much as to run."

"Here in the open they can soon surround us."

"We will be able to throw up a line of these rocks before they get here,
and because it is in the open we can hold them back a few hours."

There was plenty of material near at hand with which to make a shelter
sufficient to protect them from the poisoned arrows, and after a few
seconds' hesitation Cummings saw that Poyor's plan was the only one
which could be carried into execution.

"Set to work lively, boys," he shouted, as he began to throw up the
smaller boulders in a circle. "Everything depends on our getting a fort
ready before they come within shooting distance."

There was no necessity of urging the boys or Jake to labor
industriously. They could see the enemy and hear their yells of triumph
at having tracked the game so successfully, therefore not a second was
wasted.

It seemed as if Poyor had the strength of a dozen men in his arms. He
lifted huge boulders which the remainder of the party together could
hardly have moved from their resting place; flung the smaller ones
around as if they were nothing more than pebbles, and when the circle
had been raised four feet high, set about digging away the sand from the
center in order to increase the depth.

The preparations were not yet completed when the foremost of the
pursuers came in view from beneath a ledge about forty yards away, and
he said to Cummings:

"Three guns are enough to hold them back while Jake and I finish the
work here. Do not hesitate to shoot, for they will stop at nothing when
the time comes that we can hold out no longer."

"Teddy, you sit there," Cummings said, as he pointed to an aperture in
the wall which had been left as a loop-hole. "Neal, you're stationed
next to him, and I'll hold this place. Now work lively, and pick off
every one of those yelling villains that comes within range."

He discharged both barrels of his weapon