There would be no trouble about living. Beyond a doubt, they could find ample supplies of food, and so long a time passed without the appearance of an enemy that they began to feel quite safe at their home in The Dip and in the region about it. As they sat there late one afternoon and watched the twilight come over The Silver Cup, Hans Arenberg spoke the thoughts that had been heavy in his mind that day.
"See what a misty twilight it iss," he said. "It iss too cold for rain, and so I think it means snow. The Comanches will come with the snow. While the weather was warm, and they could sleep on the open plain, they rode there, hunting the buffalo. Now the western bands will seek shelter and they will come here."
He walked from the hut and stood looking down at the lake, the surface of which had turned from silver to gray. The three followed him with a gaze which was of blended curiosity and sympathy.
"I more than half believe him," said Breakstone in a whisper to the others.
"It seems to me that sometimes he talks like a prophet," said John Bedford.
"He is a prophet sometimes," said Bill Breakstone, "or at least he's got second sight. Now he's looking at that lake, but he doesn't see it at all. He sees the Comanches, riding, riding, always riding toward this place, and maybe they have with them some one for whom he is looking. Maybe, and maybe not, but we'll see, don't you forget that, Phil, you and John, and somehow I'm thinking that he sees true."
It rapidly grew colder, and they were glad enough, when they came back from hunting and scouting, to seek the shelter of the thatched hut in The Dip. There, while the coals glowed on the stone hearth that they had made, and the smoke passed out through the vent in the wall, they speculated much on what was passing far to the southward of them. The great battle at the mouth of the Pass of Angostura was still so vivid in the minds of Phil, Breakstone, and Arenberg that they did not have to shut their eyes to see it again, and John often dreamed that he was still in the Castle of Montevideo, sitting by that deep loophole, looking out upon his mountain landscape.
"I guess they're closing in on the City of Mexico," said Bill Breakstone. "It's in a rough and mountainous country, easy to defend, but after the battle of Buena Vista I don't believe anything in Mexico can defeat our soldiers, no matter what the odds."
"And Middleton is with them," said Phil. "I'd like to see the Captain again. He was a fine man."
"Maybe we will," said Breakstone. "The West is a mighty big place, but there are not many white men in it, and when you shuffle them around some you are likely to meet them more than once."