Bart promised, and took his station, rifle across his knee and glass in hand, to look out for danger, while before he had been there long the Beaver came and sat beside him, making Bart hurriedly apologise for the risk he had caused on the day of their adventure, he never having been alone since with the chief.
“Master Bart, brave young chief,” was all the Indian said; and then he sat silently gazing out over the plain, while no sooner were the cattle released than they set off lowing towards the pastures at a long lumbering gallop, Joses and his followers having hard work to keep up with them, for they needed no driving.
In less than half an hour they were all munching away contentedly enough, with Joses and his men on the far side to keep the drove from going too far out towards the plain, and then all at once the Beaver started up, pointing right away.
“Apaché dogs!” he shouted.
Bart brought the glass to bear, and saw that the chief was right.
In an instant he had cocked and fired his piece, giving the alarm, when the garrison ran to their places ready to cover the coming in of the cattle-drivers and their herd, Bart, seeing that Joses had taken the alarm, and with his men was trying to drive the feeding animals back.
But the Doctor had not calculated upon hunger and bovine obstinacy. The poor brutes after much fasting were where they could eat their fill, and though Joses and his men drove them from one place, they blundered back to another, lowing, bellowing, and getting more and more excited, but never a step nearer to their corral.
And all this while the Apachés were coming on at full speed, sweeping over the level plain like a cloud.
The Doctor grew frantic.
“Quick!” he cried; “we must go out to help Joses and his men. No, it would be madness. Good heavens! what a mistake!”