In the Pecos Country

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“I had better dig out of here,” was the thought that came to him, as he glanced furtively at the motionless figure. “He doesn't see me yet, but there is no telling how soon he will.”

And now the extraordinary good fortune which had attended the boy up to this time seemed to desert him. He had scarcely begun his return to the cover of the rock, when he felt a sudden desire to sneeze coming over him. He grasped his nose, in the hope of checking it—but it only made matters worse, and the explosion which instantly followed was twice as great as it would have been otherwise.

Poor Fred was in despair!

He felt that it was all over, and he was powerless to move. He was like one overtaken by a dreadful nightmare, when he finds himself unable to escape some appalling evil that is settling down upon him. He turned, with a despairing glance, to the red-skin, expecting to see the glitter of his tomahawk or knife as it descended.

The warrior did not stir! Could Indian sleep so sound?

Surely not, and the boy just then recalled the fate of the sentinel Thompson, a couple of nights before.

“I believe he is dead,” he muttered, looking attentively toward him, and feeling a speedy return of his courage.

With a lingering fear and doubt besetting him, he crept around the corner of the rock, taking one of the bones as he did so, and, when in position, he gave it such a toss that it dropped directly upon the head of the unconscious red man.

This was not a very prudent way of learning whether a man was sleeping temporially or eternally, when so much depended upon the decision of the question, for, if he were only taking a nap, he would be certain to resent the taking of any such liberties with his person. The test, however, was effectual. The bone struck his bead, and glanced as though it had fallen against the surface of a rock, and Fred could no longer doubt that the red-skin had been slain while sitting in this very attitude by the fire.

Such was the case. There had been plotting and counterplotting. While the Kiowas were playing their tricks upon the Apaches, the latter managed to a certain extent to turn the tables. When they branched out upon their reconnoitering expedition, Waukko was engaged in the same business. When he discovered the single sentinel sitting by the fire, he crept up like a phantom behind him, and drove his hunting knife with such swift silence that his victim gave only a spasmodic quiver and start, and was dead.