t great difficulty. The loose boulders rested upon one
another, in such fashion, that even the most expert climber would have
found difficulty in scaling them; and the stunted spreading cedars that
grew between their clefts, combined in forming a _chevaux de frise_
almost impenetrable.

I was not permitted to dwell long on the contemplation of this
geological phenomenon. On reaching the summit, and directing my
telescope up the valley, I obtained a tableau in its field of vision
that almost caused me to drop the glass out of my fingers! The whole
waggon was in view down to its wheel-tracks; and the dark forms were
still around it. Some were afoot, others on horseback--while a few
appeared to be lying flat along the sward. Whoever these last may have
been, I saw at the first glance what the others were. The bronzed skins
of naked bodies--the masses of long sweeping hair--the plumed crests and
floating drapery--were perfectly apparent in the glass--and all
indicating a truth of terrible significance that the forms thus seen
were those of savage men! Yes: both they on horseback and afoot were
Indians beyond a doubt. And those horizontally extended? They were
_white_ men--the owners of the waggons? This truth flashed on me, as I
beheld a fearful object--a body lying head towards me, with its crown of
mottled red and white, gleaming significantly through the glass. I had
no doubt as to the nature of the object: it was a scalpless skull!

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO.

RAISING A RAMPART.

I kept the telescope to my eye not half so long as I have taken in
telling of it. Quick as I saw that the men stirring around the waggon
were Indians, I thought only of screening my person from their sight.
To effect this, I dropped down from the summit of the rock--on the
opposite side from that facing toward the savages. Showing only the top
of my head, and with the glass once more levelled up the valley, I
continued the observation. I now became assured that the victim of the
ensanguined skull was a white man; that the other prostrate forms were
also the bodies of white men, all dead--all, no doubt, mutilated in a
similar manner?

The tableau told its own tale. The presence of the waggon halted, and
without horses--one or two dead ones lying under the tongue--the ruck of
Indians clustering around it--the bodies stretched along the earth--
other objects, boxes, and bales, strewed over the sward--all were
significant of recent