“They think that we are hiding in the forest at the edge of the meadow, they don’t exactly know where; therefore they scatter their men so that if we opened fire on them we should not be able to do as much damage as if the men went forward in a bunch.
“That’s the white man’s style of warfare. They won’t find us down there, and they’ll probably come further up the mountain.
“There must be three or four hundred of them. I don’t believe that many of the blacks have firearms. Even if they have, I reckon that we fellows will be able to give them a hot afternoon’s work.”
Trim said nothing to his companions about the advancing party of Narugas until Dobbin had been taken under the falls and made comfortable upon a dry shelving rock there.
Then Trim explained the situation to the two white men, and told them what he thought was the best plan for meeting the attack.
There were weapons enough in the party to give each man either a revolver or a rifle.
Not more than three men at the very most could stand together at either of the entrances to the cave beneath the falls.
Trim stationed a white man and two blacks at each of these entrances.
“Now then,” he said, “I’m going to attend to Dobbin’s wound. The enemy can’t possibly get at us through the falls. The only way that they can get in here is by coming in the same way that we did.
“Three men at each entrance is as good as a thousand.