spoke, a fresh outburst of blood came from his nostrils and
mouth, a quiver went over him--and then he was dead. I do not believe
that many men would have done what Dennis did: run a good quarter of a
mile with an arrow through his lungs, and then die exulting because he
had succeeded in warning the camp.

Rayburn had the situation instantly in hand. "Get the packs and saddles
on quick!" he cried. "The Indians 'll come around that hill and try to
scoop us here in the open. They won't close in; they'll keep off, and
just lie around for a week till we're played out, and then they'll step
in and finish us; they'll do that, likely enough, anyway. But our one
chance is to get to a place up the valley here, where they can tackle us
only from in front. There's water up there, so we'll be all right, and
we may be able to shoot enough of them to make the rest give it up, or
they'll close in, and we'll have the comfort of getting the whole thing
ended without any useless fooling over it."

All the while that he spoke he was working away, and so were we all, at
saddling and packing; and, luckily, the animals, although the water and
the food and the rest had put new strength into them, still were too
tired to give us the trouble that animals give at such times when they
are fresh. In a surprisingly short time we were ready to start; and yet
not a sign had we had, save the warning that Dennis had brought us, that
there was an Indian within a hundred miles of us. Indeed, but for his
dead body on the ground beside our camp-fire, we might have imagined
that our scare was only a bad dream. That it was a very bad reality was
shown just as the last pack went on, when one of our Otomi Indians gave
a howl as an arrow went through his leg, and I felt a sharp little nip
on my forehead where an arrow just grazed it, and there was that queer,
faint whirring sound in the air that only a flight of a good many arrows
together will produce.

Rayburn took the body of poor Dennis before him on his own horse; he'd
be d----d if the Indians should get Dennis yet, he said; and away we
went up the sandy bed of the _arroyo_, driving the mules before us, and
the Otomi Indians pelting along on a dead-run. The Indian who had been
hit coolly broke the arrow off short, and then pulled it out through the
wound.

Suddenly we saw Young, who was riding a little ahead of the rest of us,
half pull up his horse and look earnestly at a great shoulder of rock
that