“I’m willin’ to,” sez Olaf, and Oscar nodded his head. This was about all Oscar ever used his head for except to hang his hat on; but he was a good boy and sizey.
“All right,” sez Horace. “Now then, Happy Hawkins, the responsibility is on you.”
“Now, be sure you mean this,” sez I; “for my plan is a foolish one, and I don’t care to explain each step. I don’t claim ’at my scheme is the best; but my experience has been, that a poor plan carried out beats a good plan which never came in. Climb up here, and we’ll walk off in that direction without lookin’ behind us.”
They couldn’t see any sense in this; but they follered me without chatterin’, and I was satisfied. Horace had the field glasses in his pocket; so when we had reached the place I thought would do, I set him to lookin’ across the crick careful to see if he could see anything. All the others watched him, and I got behind and looked up the slope. I saw several men hidin’ in the washes, and I said in a low tone: “Keep on lookin’ across the hill, Horace. Now, you others get out from behind him. Now, Horace, whirl and examine the washes up the slope and see how many men you can count.”
Horace whirled, as did all the rest of ’em, and we found seven fellers in sight. We figured ’at there must be at least fifteen Cross-branders in the neighborhood, and probably more, and the ones we were able to see in the washes convinced me ’at Ty had staked everything on gettin’ us cornered. They didn’t have enough to split up, so I felt sure they would leave the ravine open, not thinkin’ it likely we’d try to go down there.
“Now,” sez I, “let’s go to that clump o’ rocks and hide.” They all came along; but didn’t seem enthusiastic, because the washes led down close to the rocks—we, ourselves, havin’ sneaked down ’em while we were waitin’ for the woman that day. We couldn’t see the path the boys would take in comin’ up to our camp from across the crick, while the Cross-branders could see ’em a good part o’ the way, and this fretted me a lot; though I hoped they had heard Horace’s elephant gun.
After a time, Horace, through the glasses, saw a feller’s head watchin’ us from our old look-out; so we knew they had crept up along the back o’ that ridge. Then we heard consid’able shootin’ off to the right, and knew the boys had got back. There were several good places for ambush, and we felt purty blue at what had most likely happened; but they were on hossback, and would be on their guard after knowin’ ’at the Cross-branders were up to some trick; so we hoped for the best.
This clump o’ rocks we were in was composed of one big crag and a lot o’ little ones. The big one shut off our view, and finally Horace said it would be a good plan to get on top of it, as the chances were we could get a good view in all directions. It was fifteen feet up to where the’ was footin’, and we didn’t see how it could be done; but he said it was simple; so we let him try it. He made Olaf and Tank face the rock, holdin’ on to each other. Then I climbed to their shoulders and they passed up Horace. I handed him up as far as I could reach, and it was as simple as peelin’ a banana. The signal was for him to drop a pebble when he wanted to come down.
In about two moments a stone the size o’ your fist fell on Oscar’s head; which was a good thing, for it might otherwise have hurt a head we had more use for. We laddered ourselves again’ the rock, and Horace came down without missin’ a single one of our ears. When he reached the level, he put his finger on his lips, and said he had seen ten men sneakin’ up toward the rock and only a few hundred feet away. Oscar was still holdin’ to the lump on his head, so Horace explained ’at the’ hadn’t been any pebbles on top the crag.
“Now, what ya goin’ to do?” asked Horace to me.