rpreter told his fellows Joses' words, and they ceased firing
without a moment's hesitation, and crouched there with their white
friends, listening to the loud crack of the Apaches' rifles, and the
almost simultaneous _fat_! of the bullet against the rock.

Not a man in the gallery was injured in the slightest degree, while, as
soon as he had got over a sort of nervous feeling that was the result of
being shot at without the excitement of being able to return the fire,
Bart lay watching the actions of the Apaches, and the senseless way in
which they kept on firing at the spots where they fancied that their
enemies might be.

The cover they had made for was partly scrubby brush and partly masses
of stone lying singly in the plain, and it was curious to watch an
Indian making his attack. First the barrel of his rifle would be
protruded over some rugged part of the stone, then very slowly a feather
or two would appear, and then, if the spot was very closely watched, a
narrow patch of brown forehead and a glancing eye could be seen. Then
where the eye had appeared was shut out by the puff of white smoke that
suddenly spirted into the air; and as it lifted, grew thin, and died
away, Bart could see that the barrel of the rifle had gone, and its
owner was no doubt lying flat down behind the piece of rock, which
looked as if no Indian had been near it for years.

Five minutes later the muzzle of the rifle would slowly appear from
quite a different part, and so low down that it was evident the Apache
was lying almost upon his face. This time perhaps Bart would note that
all at once a little patch of dry grass would appear, growing up as it
were in a second, as the Indian balanced it upon the barrel of his
piece, making it effectually screen his face, while it was thin and open
enough for him to take aim at the place from whence he had seen flashes
of fire come.

Bart saw a score of such tricks as this, and how a patch of sage-brush,
that looked as if it would not hide a prairie dog began to send out
flashes of fire and puffs of smoke, telling plainly enough that there
was an Indian safely ensconced therein.

The Apaches' attitudes, too, excited his wonder, for they fired face
downwards, lying on their sides or their backs, and always from places
where there had been no enemy a minute before; while, when he was weary
of watching these dismounted men at their ineffective toil, there were
their friends out in the plain, who