ealthy manner, until over a dozen were in the valley below.

This completed, the phantom-like figures descended like so many
shadows, and began tugging again at the bowlders.

Not a word was exchanged, for each knew what was required of him.
Fully an hour more was occupied, by which time the labor was finished.

The bowlders were arranged in the form of an impassable wall across
the narrow valley, and the steam man was so thoroughly imprisoned that
no human aid could ever extricate him.

CHAPTER XX. THE CONCLUDING CATASTROPHE.

BALDY BICKNELL, the trapper, was the first to discover the peril of
himself and party.

When the Indians had completed their work it lacked only an hour of
daylight. Having done all that was necessary, the savages took their
stations behind the wall, lying flat upon the ground, where they were
invisible to the whites, but where every motion of theirs could be
watched and checkmated.

When the trapper opened his eyes he did not stir a limb, a way into
which he had got during his long experience on the frontiers. He
merely moved his head from side to side, so as to see anything that
was to be seen.

The first object that met his eye was the boy Brainerd, sound asleep.
Apprehensive then that something had occurred, he turned his startled
gaze in different directions, scanning everything as well as it could
be done in the pale moonlight.

When he caught sight of the wall stretched across the valley, he
rubbed his eyes, and looked at it again and again, scarcely able to
credit his senses. He was sure it was not there a few hours before,
and he could not comprehend what it could mean; but it was a verity,
and his experience told him that it could be the work of no one except
the Indians, who had outwitted him at last.

His first feeling was that of indignation toward the boy who had
permitted this to take place while he was asleep, but his mind quickly
turned upon the more important matter of meeting the peril, which,
beyond all doubt, was of the most serious character.

As yet he had not stirred his body, and looking toward the prison
wall, he caught a glimpse of the phantom-like figures, as they
occasionally flitted about, securing the best possible position,
before the whites should awake.

This glimpse made everything plain to the practical mind of Baldy
Bicknell. He comprehended that the red-skins had laid a plan to entrap
the steam man. More than to entrap thems