The query came from Ned Chadmund, who had aroused himself from slumber, and was standing at his side.
"Where is Tom?"
"About fifty miles off yonder, goin' like a streak of greased lightnin' for Fort Havens."
"What?"
Whereupon Dick Morris explained. Of course the lad was astounded to think that all this had taken place while he was dreaming of home and friends, and he hardly knew whether to rejoice or to be alarmed at the shape matters had just then taken. True, Tom Hardynge was speeding away on his fleet-footed mustang for Fort Havens, but it would take a long time to reach there and return. There was something startling in the thought that a man and a boy were all that were left to oppose the advance of the force of the Apaches from below. What was to prevent their swarming upward and overwhelming them? Nothing, it may be said, but the strong arm of Dick Morris. He might have been a Hercules, and still unable to stem the tide, but for the vast advantage given him by nature in constructing Hurricane Hill. He could be approached by the enemy only in single file. Dick, however, was of the opinion that something of the kind would be attempted, for the Apaches could not but know the errand of him who had so nicely outwitted them.
"Ain't there some way of blocking up the way?" asked Ned, as they discussed the plan.
"I've been thinkin' it over, and there is," returned Morris, crossing his legs, and scratching his head in his thoughtful way. "Three years ago, me and Kit Carson had to scoot up here to get out of the reach of something like two hundred Comanches, under that prime devil Valo-Velasquiz. They shot Kit's horse, and mine dropped dead just as we reached the bottom of the hill, so we couldn't do anythin' more in the way of hoss-flesh.
"Them Comanches hated Kit and me like pison; they knowed us both, and they went for us in a way that made us dance around lively; but it was no go, and we tumbled 'em back like tenpins, but they kept things so hot that me and Kit tipped over a big rock in the path. Of course they could climb that easy enough, but it gave us so much more chance that they didn't try it often, and they fell back and tried the Apache dodge—waiting until hunger and thirst made us come down."
"How was it you got out of the trouble?"
"It was in a mighty queer way—a mighty queer way. On the next day arter the brush we had with 'em, a bigger party than ever came up, and we calc'lated things were goin' to be redhot. But as soon as the two parties jined, some kind of a rumpus took place. We could see 'em talkin' in the most excited way, and a high old quarrel was under way. Kit Carson knowed all about Injins, but he couldn't make out what all this meant. We was in hope they'd git into a wrangle themselves, and swaller each other, and I can tell you they came mighty nigh it.