ang about me, then about the boys, the soldiers, and animals, and
then approaching the fire, sat down and looked wistfully at the
rashers of bacon Clary was still broiling. It was settled in her dog
mind that she was now a recognized member of our party.

We resumed our journey with the first break of dawn and rode to Skull
Valley. The first section of the road passed through a rough,
mountainous, and wooded country; but at the end of thirteen miles it
entered a level valley, which gradually broadened into a wide plain
that had been taken up by settlers for farms and cattle ranges. Being
well acquainted, I made several calls at the log-cabins which skirted
the road. At the Arnold house we were made very welcome, and after a
generous dinner were escorted through the house and stables by the
entire family. I had visited the valley many times when on scouting
or escort duty, and had seen the Arnold cabins gradually substituted
for their tents, and their acres slowly redeemed from grazing ground
to cultivated fields; but since my last visit Mr. Arnold had adopted
an ingenious means of defence in case of an Indian attack.

The house and stables from the first had been provided with heavy
shutters for windows and doorways, and loop-holes for fire-arms had
been made at regular four-foot intervals. These the proprietor had not
considered ample, and had constructed, twenty yards from the house, an
ingenious earthwork which could be entered by means of a subterranean
passage from the cellar. This miniature fort was in the form of a
circular pit, sunk four feet and a half in the ground, and covered by
a nearly flat roof, the edges or eaves of which were but a foot and a
half above the surface of the earth. In the space between the surface
and the eaves were loop-holes. The roof was of heavy pine timber,
closely joined, sloping upward slightly from circumference to centre,
and covered with two feet of tamped earth. To obtain water, a second
covered way led from the earthwork to a spring fifty yards distant,
the outer entrance being concealed in a rocky nook screened in a thick
clump of willows.

As we were climbing into our ambulance, preparatory to resuming our
journey, Brenda said:

"If you had reached here three hours earlier you might have had the
company of two gentlemen who are riding to La Paz."

"Sorry I did not meet them. Who were they?"

"Mr. Sage and Mr. Bell from Prescott. They are going to purchase goods
for the