"What on airth! are yer about?" roared Stanaford. "Can't yer leave the fire alone?"
"Mose must have a sufficient reason," said Arnold. "Wait 'till he tells it to you."
"Hingins!" was Bill's suggestive explanation.
"Wall! aren't we enough for 'em?"
"Scarcely!" I answered. Then I added, as I trampled out the last burning embers with my heel, "they are all around us."
"How many?" inquired Arnold.
"I cannot tell, yet," was my reply, given with what, could it have been seen by him, was a grim smile. "Probably, some two hundred and fifty."
"Yer can't mean it!" exclaimed Jennings.
"Boys!" I then said, "we are in the tightest fix I have yet been in. They are Bannocks, and the Bannocks will fight, as you all know."