"There ain't no occasion to wait down here no longer," Long Tom said. "The Injuns know well enough that they can't take this place, not at least without losing a hundred men; and it ain't Red-skin fashion to throw away lives, special when they know they have only got to wait to do the job without any fighting at all. So let us go up."
The path was comparatively easy for three-quarters of the way to the summit of the buttes. It seemed that on this side either the rock had crumbled away in past ages so as to make a gradual slope, or else water or wind had thrown up a bank against it. The height of the butte above the broad valley would be about three hundred feet, and the slope was covered with trees and undergrowth, until it terminated abruptly at the face of a wall of rock fifty feet from the summit. At one point only this wall was broken by a sort of gap or cleft some three feet wide at the bottom, and slanting as steeply as the roof of a house. The bottom was worn almost smooth by the rains of centuries and by the feet of cattle, and Hugh had to sling his gun behind him and use both hands to grasp the irregularities of the rock on either side to get up. On reaching the top he found that the summit was almost flat, a couple of hundred yards in length, and as many feet in width. It was covered with grass, and several trees, some of considerable size, were scattered about over the surface.
"Well, Bill," he said as Royce came up to him, "have you found any water?"
"Yes, there is a rock pool in the centre there by that big tree. There is water enough for us and the horses for maybe a week. Enough for us without the horses for a month or more."
"What are you going to do? Bring the horses up here?"
"We haven't settled that yet. I reckon we shall bring the best of them up anyhow."
"I suppose there is no possible place the Indians can get up except by that gap?"
"Nary one, everywhere else the rock goes straight down to the plain. There ain't no way, except by flying, to get up here if you don't come by this gap. Anyhow we shall bring the horses a good long way up the slope; it is a long line along the bottom there, and the Red-skins might crawl up in the night, and we should pretty nigh all have to keep guard. Steve says that though where we came up the ground wur smooth enough, it ain't so over the rest of the slope, but that, what with the boulders and the undergrowth and thorns, it is pretty nigh impossible to get up through the trees anywhere else. He expects that it's been water washing down the earth and sand through that gap that has filled up between the boulders, and made it smooth going where we came up. So we will bring up the horses, and get the best of them up here, and tie the others just below the gap. We can take them down water in our hats if we decide to keep them, or get them up to-morrow if we like. Anyhow all we shall want will be to keep four men at watch down below them."
"I should have thought it best to bring them all up at once, Bill; what is the use of leaving them below?"
"Waal, Hugh, there ain't grass enough to bring them all up here, and every morning we can take them down and let them graze below. There air no fear of the Injuns coming close to drive them off, and if they tried it, the critturs would come up the path again of their own accord, except those we took from the Indians. They can get a good lot of sweet grass under the trees down thar, and as long as they get that they can do pretty well without water. Thar, do you see thar are two or three more lots of Indians coming down to join the others. They'll have three hundred of them down thar before long."