Bart’s lips seemed cracking and his throat parched and burning, but this was all borne in fortitude; and as he saw the Indians on either side of him, bearing the inconveniences without a murmur, he forebore to complain.
Towards mid-day, when the heat was tremendous, and Bart was wondering why the chief or Dr Lascelles did not make some movement to see whether the strange Indians had gone, and at the same time was ready to declare to himself that the men sent out as scouts must have gone to sleep, he felt a couple of hands placed upon his shoulders from behind, pressing him down, and then a long brown sinewy arm was thrust forward, with the hand pointing to the edge of the ridge a quarter of a mile away.
Dr Lascelles had not returned, and Joses had some time before crept back to his own post, so that Bart was alone amongst their Indian friends.
He knew at once whose was the pointing arm, and following the indicated direction, he saw plainly enough first the head and shoulders of an Indian come into sight, then there was apparently a scramble and a leap, and he could see that the man was mounted. And then followed another and another, till there was a group of half a dozen mounted men, who had ridden up some ravine to the top from the plain beyond, and who were now searching and scanning the valley where the Doctor’s encampment lay.
Now was the crucial time. The neigh of a horse, the sight of an uncautiously exposed head or hand, would have been sufficient to betray their whereabouts, and sooner or later the attack would have come.
But now it was that the clever strategy of the chief was seen, for he had chosen their retreat not merely for its strength, but for its concealment.
Bart glanced back towards the waggon, and wondered how it was that this prominent object had not been seen. Fortunately, however, its tilt was of the colour of the surrounding rocks, and it was pretty well hidden behind some projecting masses.
For quite a quarter of an hour this group of mounted Indians remained full in view, and all the time Bart’s sensations were that he must be seen as plainly as he could see his foes; but at last he saw them slowly disappear one by one over the other side of the ridge; and as soon as the last had gone the chief uttered a deep “Ugh!”
There was danger though yet, and he would not let a man stir till quite half an hour later, when his two scouts came in quickly, and said a few words in a low guttural tone.
“I should be for learning the language of these men if we were to stay with them, Bart,” said the Doctor; “but they may leave us at any time, and the next party we meet may talk a different dialect.”