, and because so large a party
might leave a trail visible to the keenly observant enemy even by
starlight, and there would be moonlight before we could cross the
valley.

It was my intention to make an ambush in La Puerta. In the narrowest
part of that canon, where it was barely fifty yards wide, the walls
rose perpendicularly on each side. A hundred yards east and west of
this narrowest portion of the pass were good places of concealment. I
placed Sergeant Cunningham and thirteen men at the western end, and
took as many and the boys with me to the eastern.

The sergeant was instructed to keep his men perfectly quiet until the
head of the herd had passed their place of concealment, and then,
under cover of the noise made by the moving animals, to slip down into
the canon, and when the rear of the herd came up make a dash across
the front of the Indians and begin firing, taking care not to hit us.

For myself, I intended to drop into the pass with my detachment when
the Navajo rear had passed, deploy, and bag the whole party and the
booty.

It was a long and tiresome wait before the raiders appeared. The men
had been told that they might sleep, and many of them had availed
themselves of the permission.

The moon rose soon after ten o'clock, and made our surroundings
plainly visible in the rarefied atmosphere peculiar to the arid region
of the plains and Rockies. I sat on a bowlder and watched through the
tedious hours until three o'clock, when Corporal Frank approached from
the direction of the place where his brother was sleeping.

"What sound is that, Mr. Duncan?" he whispered.

I listened intently, and presently heard the distant bleating of
sheep, and soon after the deeper low of an ox.

"The Indians must be approaching," I replied. "You may stir up the
men. Be careful that no noise is made."

I continued to listen, and after a long time noticed a sound like the
rushing of wind in a pine forest. It was the myriad feet of the
coming flocks and herds, hurrying along the grassy valley. The men
began to assemble about me, all preserving perfect silence, listening
for the approaching Indians.

Another half-hour passed, and over a roll in the surface of the
valley, revealed against the sky, looking many times their actual size
in the uncertain perspective, appeared two tall figures, whose nearer
approach showed to be mounted Indians piloting the captured stock,
which followed close behind.

"Corporal Henry,