“Well, it’s more ’n I do. I’d like to know what ye want to git wet for. Do ye wish to put your old carcass into an agey?”
“If it rains two hours, do ’ee see,” continued Rube, without paying attention to the last interrogatory, “we needn’t stay hyur, do ’ee see?”
“Why not, Rube?” inquired Seguin, with interest.
“Why, cap,” replied the guide, “I’ve seed a skift o’ a shower make this hyur crick that ’ee wudn’t care to wade it. Hooray! it ur a-comin’, sure enuf! Hooray!”
As the trapper uttered these exclamations, a vast black cloud came rolling down from the east, until its giant winds canopied the defile. It was filled with rumbling thunder, breaking at intervals into louder percussions, as the red bolts passed hissing through it. From this cloud the rain fell, not in drops, but, as the hunter had predicted, in “spouts.”
The men, hastily throwing the skirts of their hunting shirts over their gun-locks, remained silent under the pelting of the storm.
Another sound, heard between the peals, now called our attention. It resembled the continuous noise of a train of waggons passing along a gravelly road. It was the sound of hoof-strokes on the shingly bed of the cañon. It was the horse-tread of the approaching Navajoes!
Suddenly it ceased. They had halted. For what purpose? Perhaps to reconnoitre.
This conjecture proved to be correct; for in a few moments a small red object appeared over a distant rock. It was the forehead of an Indian with its vermilion paint. It was too distant for the range of a rifle, and the hunters watched it without moving.
Soon another appeared, and another, and then a number of dark forms were seen lurking from rock to rock, as they advanced up the cañon. Our pursuers had dismounted, and were approaching us on foot.