"I've been fearing that very thing," Charley said thoughtfully. "They are a superstitious people and what they cannot understand frightens them. I can see only one thing more that we can do and that is for Walt and I to go on the night guard with them, and if there is any shooting we had better do as the lawyer says—shoot back."
"I don't like the idea of bloodshed," said Captain Westfield.
"Nor I," said Charley grimly. "But if blood must be shed I would rather it would be theirs than ours."
"Same here," agreed Walter. "If we are going to keep watch to-night, Charley, we had better eat dinner and turn in for a nap."
It was nearly sundown when the boys emerged from their tents where they had been awakened from their sleep by a clamoring outside.
They found the din the herald of the arrival of Willie John with all his worldly goods, consisting of numerous dogs, pigs, cattle, two wagons, eight oxen, a squaw, his mother and his mother-in-law, a crowd of children, and a couple of wrinkled old Indians, likely his father and father-in-law.
Much to the chums' relief, Willie John decided to make camp further on close to the machine. After they had reached their camping place, Willie John left the squaws to the ignoble menial work of making camp, and with his son, a fine looking Indian lad, came over to discuss business with his pale-face employers.
"Me drive one wagon, four oxen," he said. "Boy drive one wagon, four oxen. How much?"
"Six dollars a day," said Charley promptly. "Six dollars and plenty of tobacco."