ping ashore and un-slinging his
rifle.

"Injun, my lad; don't you see 'em? they're coming down the canyon. This
way. Never mind the fish; make straight for the chimney. We can hold
that again 'em anyhow."

_Crack_--_crack_! went a couple of rifles from some distance up the
river, and the bullets cut the boughs of the trees above their heads.

Bart's immediate idea was to sink down amongst the herbage for cover and
return the shot, but the Beaver made a rush at him, shouting, "No, no,
no!" and taking his place, began to return the fire of the approaching
Indians, bidding Bart escape.

"I don't like leaving all that fish after all, Master Bart," said Joses;
"they'd be so uncommon good up yonder. Go it, you skunks! fire away,
and waste your powder! Yah! What bad shots your savages are! I don't
believe they could hit our mountain upstairs there! Hadn't we better
stop and drive them back, Beaver, and let the greasers carry away the
fish?"

_Crack_--_crack_--_crack_! rattled the rifles; and as the faint puffs of
smoke could be seen rising above the bushes and rocks high up the
canyon, the sounds of the firing echoed to and from the rocky sides till
they died away in the distance, and it seemed at last, as the firing
grew a little hotter, and was replied to briskly by Joses and the
Indians, that fifty or sixty people were firing on either side.

The attack was so fairly responded to that the Apaches were checked for
the time, and Joses raised himself from the place he had made his
rifle-pit, and called to the Mexican greasers to run and pick up the
fish, while he and the Indians covered them; but though he called
several times, not one responded.

"What's come of all them chaps, Master Bart?" he cried.

"I think they all got to the chimney, and began to climb up," replied
Bart.

"Just like 'em," growled Joses. "My word, what a brave set o' fellows
they are! I don't wonder at the Injun looking down upon 'em and making
faces, as if they was an inferior kind of beast. Ah, would you?"

Joses lowered himself down again, for a bullet had whizzed by in
unpleasant proximity to his head.

"Are you hurt, Joses?" cried Bart, half rising to join him.

"Keep down, will you, Master Bart! Hurt me? No. They might hit you.
I say, have you fired yet?"

"Yes, three times," replied Bart; "but I fired over their heads to
frighten them."

"Hark at that!" cried Joses; "just as if that would frighten an Injun.
It woul