tter git down an' tell the boys t' be on the
watch, Lite. They can't see no hat-wavin' this time uh day. They's
somethin' movin' up to-wards camp, but what er who they be I can't make
out in the dark. Tell Luck--"

"What's the matter with us both going?" Lite asked, cupping his hands
around his eyes that he might see better. "It's getting too dark to do
any good up here--"

"Well, I calc'late mebby yore right," Applehead admitted, and began to
pick his way down over the rocks. "Ef them's Injuns, the bigger we stack
up in camp the better. If it's Ramon 'n' his bunch, I want t' git m'
hands on 'im."

He must have turned the matter over pretty thoroughly in his mind,
for when the two reached camp he had his ideas fixed and his plans all
perfected. He told Luck that somebody was working down the draw in the
dark, and that it looked like a Navvy trick; and that they had better
be ready for them, because they weren't coming just to pass the time of
day--"now I'm tellin' ye!"

The nerves of the Happy Family were raw enough by now to welcome
anything that promised action; even an Indian fight would not be so much
a disaster as a novel way of breaking the monotony. Applehead, with the
experience gathered in the old days when he was a young fellow with a
freighting outfit and old Geronimo was terrorizing all this country,
sent them back in compact half circle just within the shelter of the
trees and several rods away from their campfire and the waterhole.
There, lying crouched behind their saddles with their rifles across the
seat-sides and with ammunition belts full of cartridges, they waited for
whatever might be coming in the dark.

"It's horses," Pink exclaimed under his breath, as faint sounds came
down the draw. "Maybe--"

"Horses--and an Injun laying along the back of every one, most likely,"
Applehead returned grimly. "An old Navvy trick, that is--don't let
'em fool ye, boys! You jest wait, 'n' I'll tell ye 'when t' shoot, er
whether t' shoot at all. They can't fool ME--now I'm tellin' yuh!"

After that they were silent, listening strainedly to the growing sounds
of approach. There was the dull, unmistakable click of a hoof striking
against a rock, the softer sound of treading on yielding soil. Then a
blur of dark objects became visible, moving slowly and steadily toward
the camp.

"Aw, it's just horses," Happy Jack muttered disgustedly.

Applehead stretched a lean leg in his direction and gave Happy Jack a
ki