"I did not pretend to sleep as I lay there in my blankets, but kept turning over in my mind different plans for the morrow. It would do no good to try and join forces, for if by a determined rush we could break through their lines and get into the fort, there would be just two more to feed.
"Was there any way in which I could get food and water to them? This was the first idea that I wrestled with. Perhaps with my craft I might be able to get through on an overcast night with provisions and water.
"Another idea came to me. I might get the help of the U. S. soldiers from the nearest fort in New Mexico, but that was one hundred and fifty miles distant and time was precious. There was no assurance that the boys could hold out until assistance should come. Finally, about midnight, I, too, fell asleep, but not soundly, as the situation was always half consciously before me.
"I woke up in the early dawn, and it did not take Tom and me long to get through our breakfast. After we had watered our horses at a stream in the bottom of a ravine, about a half mile distant, we proceeded to reconnoiter the situation.
"I felt that something must be done this day and it was certainly a perplexing condition of affairs, and in many ways it was desperate. The responsibility for the two beleaguered boys weighed on me.
"One thing gave me assurance and that was Jim Darlington's resource and pluck. At least he and Jo knew enough not to be taken alive by those fiendish Apaches. However, it must not come to that.
"We went along below the south side of the ridge until opposite the hill fort, but I was not able to take any observation on account of the thick covering of trees, so I left Tom there and worked my way down the valley slope of the mountain until I was within a half mile of the hill.
"Then I came to a great pine that towered like a commanding general above the rank and file of common trees. I drove my knife deep into its trunk, and this gave me a foothold from which I was able to reach a lower branch.
"Quickly I clambered up until I was high enough to look over the surrounding trees. Cautiously I gazed down from behind the trunk. Everything was spread out before me. I could see the two ponies standing on the top of the hill.
"Jo and Jim were moving about inside their defences, apparently indifferent. I could see how cleverly they had built up their fort. If there was only some way in which I could let them know that I was near.