into the plain.

"Why do they do that, Joses?" said Bart, eagerly.

"To see all they can of our defences, my lad. They'll come on foot at
last like the others are doing, though I don't think they'll manage a
very great deal this time."

For the party from the canyon, now swollen to nearly fifty men, were
slowly approaching from the direction of the chimney, and making use of
every tuft, and bush, and rock, affording Bart a fine view from the
gallery of the clever and cunning means an Indian will adopt to get
within shot of an enemy.

They had crept on and on till they were so near that from the
hiding-place in the gallery which protected the cattle Joses could have
shot them one by one as they came along, the men being quite ignorant of
the existence of such a defence, as nothing was visible from the face of
the rock.

"I shan't fire so long as they don't touch the horses or the cattle,"
said Joses, "though perhaps I ought to, seeing how they have killed our
best friend. Somehow, though, I don't feel to like shooting a man
behind his back as it were. If they were firing away at us the thing
would be different. I could fire them it back again then pretty
sharply, I can tell you!"

Joses soon had occasion to use his rifle, for, finding themselves
unmolested, the Indians took advantage of every bit of cover they could
find; and when this ceased, and there was nothing before them but a
patch of open plain, they suddenly darted forward right up to the cattle
corral, the tracks of the animals going to and fro plainly telling them
the entrance, as the odour did the men who had crept up by night.

Reaching this, they made a bold effort to get an opening big enough for
the cattle to be driven out; but without waiting for orders, the Indians
in the rock gallery opened fire, and Joses and Bart caught the
infection, the latter feeling a fierce kind of desire to avenge his
friend the Beaver.

The rifle-shots acted like magic, sending the Apaches back to cover,
where they began to return the fire briskly enough, though they did no
more harm than to flatten their bullets, some of which dropped
harmlessly into the rifle-pits, and were coolly appropriated by the
Beaver's followers for melting down anew.

"Don't shoot, my lads," said Joses before long; "it is only wasting
ammunition. They are too well under cover. Let them fire away as long
as they like, and you can pick up the lead as soon as they are gone."

The inte