"Now, look here," reminded Fraser; "that wouldn't do. You don't want to kill Matthews, and you don't want to be killed. It'd be one or the other if you poked your nose in there."
"What do you advise?"
"Lie low till you see a good opportunity. I think the chap'll come out."
"But suppose he doesn't?"
"You'll have to stay here, that's all. I'll divide the watch with you."
"Oh, I don't like to ask you to do that, old man. We ought to be able to think up some kind of a scheme."
The sun was fast declining. Soon it disappeared behind the river-bluffs, when the boom of the evening-gun swelled the last note of "retreat."
Fraser sighed. The trumpet had suggested a certain dire possibility.
"I don't care for the cold," he declared, "but—but"—ruefully—"do you suppose the K. O.'ll give me more than a month in quarters for this? There's that dance at the Major's next week; I'd like awfully to go. If I'm under arrest, I can't. And who'll feed my horse and my rattlesnakes!"
"Some sassy sergeant'll shoot your fiend of a nag," said the storekeeper, "and the rattlers'll be requested to devour one another. When that's over, I'll break it gently to you (and you must be mum) that the K. O. is disciplining you simply to keep his face. He knows—suggested it himself—that I'm to be helped out by some of you fellows."