George Manville Fenn

"The Silver Canyon"

Chapter One.

How they decided to run the Risk.

“Well, Joses,” said Dr Lascelles, “if you feel afraid, you had better go back to the city.”

There was a dead silence here, and the little party grouped about between a small umbrella-shaped tent and the dying embers of the fire, at which a meal of savoury antelope steaks had lately been cooked, carefully avoided glancing one at the other.

Just inside the entrance of the tent, a pretty, slightly-made girl of about seventeen was seated, busily plying her needle in the repair of some rents in a pair of ornamented loose leather leggings that had evidently been making acquaintance with some of the thorns of the rugged land. She was very simply dressed, and, though wearing the high comb and depending veil of a Spanish woman, her complexion, tanned is it was, and features, suggested that she was English, as did also the speech of the fine athletic middle-aged man who had just been speaking.

His appearance, too, was decidedly Spanish, for he wore the short jacket with embroidered sleeves, tight trousers—made very wide about the leg and ankle-sash, and broad sombrero of the Mexican-Spanish inhabitant of the south-western regions of the great American continent.

The man addressed was a swarthy-looking half-breed, who lay upon the parched earth, his brow rugged, his eyes half-closed, and lips pouted out in a surly, resentful way, as if he were just about to speak and say something nasty.

Three more men of a similar type were lying beside and behind, all smoking cigarettes, which from time to time they softly rolled up and lighted with a brand at the fire, as they seemed to listen to the conversation going on between the bronzed Englishman and him who had been addressed as Joses.

They were all half-breeds, and boasted of their English blood, but always omitted to say anything about the Indian fluid that coursed through their veins; while they followed neither the fashion of Englishman nor Indian in costume, but, like the first speaker, were dressed as Spaniards, each also wearing a handkerchief of bright colour tied round his head and beneath his soft hat, just as if a wound had been received, with a long showy blanket depending from the shoulder, and upon which they now half lay.

There was another present, however, also an anxious watcher of the scene, and that was a well-built youth of about the same age as the girl. For the last five minutes he had been busily cleaning his rifle and oiling the lock; and this task done, he let the weapon rest with its butt upon the rocky earth, its sling-strap hanging loose, and its muzzle lying in his hand as he leaned against a rock and looked sharply from face to face, waiting to hear the result of the conversation.

His appearance was different to that of his companions, for he wore a closely fitting tunic and loose breeches of what at the first glance seemed to be dark tan-coloured velvet, but a second look showed to be very soft, well-prepared deerskin; stout gaiters of a hard leather protected his legs; a belt, looped so as to form a cartridge-holder, and a natty little felt hat, completed his costume.

Like the half-breeds, he wore a formidable knife in his belt, while on their part each had near him a rifle.

“Well,” said the speaker, after a long pause, “you do not speak; I say, are you afraid?”

“I dunno, master,” said the man addressed. “I don’t feel afraid now, but if a lot of Injuns come whooping and swooping down upon us full gallop, I dessay I should feel a bit queer.”

There was a growl of acquiescence here from the other men, and the first speaker went on.

“Well,” he said, “let us understand our position at once. I would rather go on alone than with men I could not trust.”

“Always did trust us, master,” said the man surlily.

“Allays,” said the one nearest to him, a swarthier, more surly, and fiercer-looking fellow than his companion.

“I always did, Joses; I always did, Juan; and you too, Harry and Sam,” said the first speaker. “I was always proud of the way in which my ranche was protected and my cattle cared for.”

“We could not help the Injuns stampeding the lot, master, time after time.”

“And ruining me at last, my lads? No; it was no fault of yours. I suppose it was my own.”

“No, master, it was setting up so close to the hunting-grounds, and the Injun being so near.”

“Ah well, we need not consider how all that came to pass, my lads: we know they ruined me.”

“And you never killed one o’ them for it, master,” growled Joses.

“Nor wished to, my lad. They did not take our lives.”

“But they would if they could have broken in and burnt us out, master,” growled Joses.

“Perhaps so; well, let us understand one another. Are you afraid?”

“Suppose we all are, master,” said the man.

“And you want to go back?”

“No, not one of us, master.”

Here there was a growl of satisfaction.

“But you object to going forward, my men?”

“Well, you see it’s like this, master: the boys here all want to work for you, and young Master Bart, and Miss Maude there; but they think you ought to go where it’s safe-like, and not where we’re ’most sure to be tortured and scalped. There’s lots o’ places where the whites are in plenty.”

“And where every gully and mountain has been ransacked for metals, my lad. I want to go where white men have never been before, and search the mountains there.”

“For gold and silver and that sort of thing, master?”

“Yes, my lads.”

“All right, master; then we suppose you must go.”

“And you will go back because it is dangerous?”

“I never said such a word, master. I only said it warn’t safe.”

“And for answer to that, Joses, I say that, danger or no danger, I must try and make up for my past losses by some good venture in one of these unknown regions. Now then, have you made up your minds? If not, make them up quickly, and let me know what you mean to do.”

Joses did not turn round to his companions, whose spokesman he was, but said quietly, as he rolled up a fresh cigarette:

“Mind’s made up, master.”

“And you will go back?”

“Yes, master.”

“All of you?”

“All of us, master,” said Joses slowly. “When you do,” he added after a pause.

“I knew he would say that, sir,” cried the youth who had been looking on and listening attentively; “I knew Joses would not leave us, nor any of the others.”

“Stop a moment,” interposed the first speaker. “What about your companions, my lad?”

“What, them?” said Joses quietly. “Why, they do as I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Course I am, master. They told me what to do.”

“Then thank you, my lad. I felt and knew I could trust you. Believe me, I will take you into no greater danger than I can help; but we must be a little venturesome in penetrating into new lands, and the Indians may not prove our enemies after all.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Haw, haw, haw, haw!” laughed Joses hoarsely. “You wait and see, master. They stampeded your cattle when you had any. Now look out or they’ll stampede you.”

“Well, we’ll risk it,” said the other. “Now let’s be ready for any danger that comes. Saddle the horses, and tether them close to the waggon. I will have the first watch to-night; you take the second, Joses; and you, Bart, take the third. Get to sleep early, my lads, for I want to be off before sunrise in the morning.”

The men nodded their willingness to obey orders, and soon after all were hushed in sleep, the ever-wakeful stars only looking down upon one erect figure, and that was the form of Dr Lascelles, as he stood near the faintly glowing fire, leaning upon his rifle, and listening intently for the faintest sound of danger that might be on its way to work them harm.

Chapter Two.

What went before.

As Dr Lascelles stood watching there, his thoughts naturally went back to the events of the past day, the sixth since they had bidden good-bye to civilisation and started upon their expedition. He thought of the remonstrance offered by his men to their proceeding farther; then of the satisfactory way in which the difficulty had been settled; and later on of the troubles brought up by his man’s remarks. He recalled the weary years he had spent upon his cattle farm, in which he had invested after the death of his wife in England; how he had come out to New Mexico, and settled down to form a cattle-breeding establishment with his young daughter Maude for companion.

Then he thought of how everything had gone wrong, not only with him, but with his neighbours, one of the nearest being killed by an onslaught of a savage tribe of Indians, the news being brought to him by the son of the slaughtered man. The result had been that the Doctor had determined to flee at once; but the day was put off, and as no more troubles presented themselves just then, he once more settled down. Young Bart became by degrees almost as it were a son, and the fight was continued till herd after herd had been swept away by the Indians; and at last Dr Lascelles, the clever physician who had wearied of England and his practice after his terrible loss, and who had come out to the West to seek rest and make money for his child, found himself a beggar, and obliged to begin life again.

Earlier in life he had been a great lover of geology, and was something of a metallurgist; and though he had of late devoted himself to the wild, rough life of a western cattle farmer, he had now and then spent a few hours in exploring the mountainous parts of the country near: so that when he had once more to look the world in the face, and decide whether he should settle down as some more successful cattle-breeder’s man, the idea occurred to him that his knowledge of geology might prove useful in this painful strait.

He jumped at the idea.

Of course: why not? Scores of men had made discoveries of gold, silver, and other valuable metals, and the result had been fortune. Why should not he do something of the kind?

He mentioned the idea to young Bartholomew Woodlaw, who jumped at the prospect, but looked grave directly after.

“I should like it, Mr Lascelles,” he said, “but there is Maude.”

“What of her?” said the Doctor.

“How could we take her into the wilds?”

“It would be safer to take her into the deserts and mountains, than to leave her here,” said the Doctor bitterly. “I should at least always have her under my eye.”

He went out and told his men, who were hanging about the old ranche although there was no work for them to do.

One minute they were looking dull and gloomy, the next they were waving their hats and blankets in the air, and the result of it all was that in less than a month Dr Lascelles had well stored a waggon with the wreck of his fortune, purchased a small tent for his daughter’s use, and, all well-armed, the little party had started off into the wilds of New Mexico, bound for the mountain region, where the Doctor hoped to make some discovery of mineral treasure sufficient to recompense him for all his risk, as well as for the losses of the past.

They were, then, six days out when there was what had seemed to be a sort of mutiny among his men—a trouble that he was in the act of quelling when we made his acquaintance in the last chapter—though, as we have seen, it proved to be no mutiny at all, but merely a remonstrance on the part of the rough, honest fellows who had decided to share his fortunes, against running into what they esteemed to be unnecessary risks.

Joses and his three fellows were about as brigandish and wild-looking a set of half savages as a traveller could light upon in a day’s journey even in these uncivilised parts. In fact, no stranger would have been ready to trust his life or property in their keeping, if he could have gone farther. If he had, though, he would most probably have fared worse; for it is not always your pleasantest outside that proves to hide the best within.

These few lines, then, will place the reader au courant, as the French say, with the reason of the discussion at the beginning of the last chapter, and show him as well why it was that Dr Lascelles, Bart Woodlaw, and Maud Lascelles were out there in the desert with such rough companions. This being then the case, we will at once proceed to deal with their adventurous career.

Chapter Three.

The First Apachés.

Evening was closing in, and the ruddy, horizontal rays of the sun were casting long grotesque shadows of the tall-branched plants of the cactus family that stood up, some like great fleshy leaves, rudely stuck one upon the other, and some like strangely rugged and prickly fluted columns, a body of Indians, about a hundred strong, rode over the plain towards the rocks where Dr Lascelles and his little party were encamped.

The appearance of the Indians denoted that they were on the war-path. Each wore a rude tiara of feathers around his head, beneath which hung wild his long black hair; and saving their fringed and ornamented leggings, the men rode for the most part naked, and with their breasts and arms painted in a coarse and extravagant style. Some had a rude representation of a Death’s head and bones in the centre of the chest; others were streaked and spotted; while again others wore a livery of a curiously mottled fashion, that seemed to resemble the markings of a tortoise, but was intended to imitate the changing aspect of a snake.

All were fully armed, some carrying rifles, others bows and arrows, while a few bore spears, from the top of whose shafts below the blades hung tufts of feathers. Saddles they had none, but each sturdy, well-built Indian pony was girt with its rider’s blanket or buffalo robe, folded into a pad, and secured tightly with a broad band of raw hide. Bits and bridles too, of the regular fashion, were wanting, the swift pony having a halter of horse-hair hitched round its lower jaw, this being sufficient to enable the rider to guide the docile little animal where he pleased; while for tethering purposes, during a halt, there was a stout long peg, and the rider’s plaited hide lariat or lasso, ready for a variety of uses in the time of need.

The rugged nature of the ground separated the party of Indians from the Doctor’s little camp, so that the approach of the war party was quite unobserved, and apparently, from their movements, they were equally unaware of the presence of a camp of the hated whites so near at hand.

They were very quiet, riding slowly and in regular order, as if moved by one impulse; and when the foremost men halted, all drew rein by some tolerably verdant patches of the plain, blankets and robes were unstrapped, the horses allowed to graze, and in an incredibly short time the band had half a dozen fires burning of wood that had been hastily collected, and they were ravenously devouring the strips of dried buffalo meat that had been hanging all day in the hot sun, to be peppered with dust from the plain, and flavoured by emanations from the horse against whose flank it had been beaten.

This, however, did not trouble the savages, whom one learned in the lore of the plains would have immediately set down as belonging to a powerful tribe of horse Indians—the Apachés, well-known for their prowess in war and their skill as wild-horsemen of the plains. They feasted on, like men whose appetites had become furious from long fasting, until at last they had satisfied their hunger, and the evening shadows were making the great plants of cactus stand up, weird and strange, against the fast-darkening evening sky; then, while the embers

of the fire grew more ruddy and bright, each Indian, save those deputed to look after the horses and keep on the watch for danger, drew his blanket or buffalo robe over his naked shoulders, filled and lit his long pipe, and began silently and thoughtfully to smoke.

Meanwhile, in utter unconsciousness of the nearness of danger, Dr Lascelles continued his watch thus far into the night. From time to time he examined the tethering of the horses, and glanced inside the tent to stand and listen to the regular low breathing of his child, and then walk to where, rolled in his blanket, Bart Woodlaw lay sleeping in full confidence that a good watch was being kept over the camp as he slept.

Then the Doctor tried to pierce the gloom around.

Away towards the open plains it was clear and transparent, but towards the rocks that stretched there on one side all seemed black. Not a sound fell upon his ear, and so great was the stillness that the dull crackle of a piece of smouldering wood sounded painfully loud and strange.

At last the time had come for arousing some one to take his place, and walking, after a few moments’ thought, to where Bart lay, he bent down and touched him lightly on the arm.

In an instant, rifle in hand, the lad was upon his feet.

“Is there danger?” he said in a low, quiet whisper.

“I hope not, Bart,” said the Doctor quietly, “everything is perfectly still. I shall lie down in front of the tent; wake me if you hear a sound.”

The lad nodded, and then stood trying to shake off the drowsiness that still remained after his deep sleep while he watched the Doctor’s figure grow indistinct as he walked towards the dimly seen tent. He could just make out that the Doctor bent down, and then he seemed to disappear.

Bart Woodlaw remained motionless for a few moments, and then, as he more fully realised his duties, he walked slowly to where the horses were tethered, patted each in turn, the gentle animals responding with a low sigh as they pressed their heads closely to the caressing hand. Satisfied that the tethering ropes were safe, and dreading no hostile visit that might result in a stampede, the guardian of the little camp walked slowly to where the fire emitted a faint glow; and, feeling chilly, he was about to throw on more wood, when it occurred to him that if he did so, the fire would show out plainly for a distance of many miles, and that it would serve as a sign to invite enemies if any were within eyeshot, so he preferred to suffer from the cold, and, drawing his blanket round him, he left the fire to go out.

Bart had been watching the stars for about an hour, staring at the distant plain, and trying to make out what was the real shape of a pile of rock that sheltered them on the north, and which seemed to stand out peculiarly clear against the dark sky, when, turning sharply, he brought his rifle to the ready, and stood, with beating heart, staring at a tall dark figure that remained motionless about a dozen yards away.

It was so dark that he could make out nothing more, only that it was a man, and that he did not move.

The position was so new, and it was so startling to be out there in the wilds alone as it were—for the others were asleep—and then to turn round suddenly and become aware of the fact that a tall dark figure was standing where there was nothing only a few minutes before, that in spite of a strong effort to master himself, Bart Woodlaw felt alarmed in no slight degree.

His first idea was that this must be an enemy, and that he ought to fire. If an enemy, it must be an Indian; but then it did not look like an Indian; and Bart knew that it was his duty to walk boldly up to the figure, and see what the danger was; and in this spirit he took one step forward, and then stopped,—for it was not an easy thing to do.

The night seemed to have grown blacker, but there was the dark figure all the same, and it seemed to stand out more plainly than before, but it did not move, and this gave it an uncanny aspect that sent something of a chill through the watcher’s frame.

At last he mastered himself, and, with rifle held ready, walked boldly towards the figure, believing that it was some specimen of the fleshy growth of the region to which the darkness had added a weirdness all its own.

No. It was a man undoubtedly, and as, nerving himself more and more, Bart walked close up, the figure turned, and said slowly:—

“I can’t quite make that out, Master Bart.”

“You, Joses!” exclaimed Bart, whose heart seemed to give a bound of delight.

“Yes, sir; I thought I’d get up and watch for a bit; and just as I looked round before coming to you, that rock took my fancy.”

“Yes, it does look quaint and strange,” said Bart; “I had been watching it.”

“Yes, but why do it look quaint and strange?” said Joses in a low, quiet whisper, speaking as if a dozen savages were at his elbow.

“Because we can see it against the sky,” replied Bart, who felt half amused at the importance placed by his companion upon such a trifle.

“And why can you see it against the sky?” said Joses again. “Strikes me there’s a fire over yonder.”

Bart was about to exclaim, “What nonsense!” but he recalled the times when out hunting up stray cattle Joses had displayed a perception that had seemed almost marvellous, and so he held his tongue.

“I’ll take a turn out yonder, my lad,” he said quietly; “I won’t be very long.”

“Shall I wake up the Doctor?”

“No, not yet. Let him get a good rest,” replied Joses. “Perhaps it’s nothing to mind; but coming out here we must be always ready to find danger, and danger must be ready to find us on the look-out.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Bart eagerly.

“No, that won’t do,” said the rough fellow sturdily. “You’ve got to keep watch like they tell me the sailors do out at sea. Who’s to take care of the camp if you go away?”

“I’ll stay then,” said Bart, with a sigh of dissatisfaction, and the next minute he was alone. For Joses had thrown down his blanket, and laid his rifle upon it carefully, while over the lock he had placed his broad Spanish hat to keep off the moisture of the night air. Then he had gone silently off at a trot over the short and scrubby growth near at hand.

One moment he was near; the next he had grown as it were misty in the darkness, and disappeared, leaving Bart, fretting at the inaction, and thinking that the task of doing duty in watching as sentry was the hardest he had been called upon to perform.

Meanwhile the rough cattle driver and plainsman had continued his trot till the broken nature of the ground compelled him to proceed cautiously, threading his way in and out amongst the masses of rock, and forcing him to make a considerable détour before he passed the ridge of stones.

His first act was to drop down on hands and knees; his next to lie flat, and drag himself slowly forward a couple of hundred yards, and then stop.

It was quite time that he had, for on either hand, as well as in front, lay groups of Indians, while just beyond he could distinguish the horses calmly cropping the grass and other herbage near. So still was it, and so closely had he approached, that every mouthful seized by the horses sounded quite plainly upon his ear, while more than once came the mutterings of some heavy sleeper, with an occasional hasty movement on the part of some one who was restless.

Joses had found out all he wanted, and the next thing was to get back and give the alarm. But as is often the case in such matters, it was easier to come than to return. It had to be done though, for the position of those in the little camp was one full of peril, and turning softly, he had begun his retrograde movement, when a figure he had not seen suddenly uttered an impatient “ugh!” and started to his feet.

Joses’ hand went to his belt and grasped his knife, but that was all. It was not the time for taking to headlong flight, an act which would have brought the whole band whooping and yelling at his heels.

Fortunately for the spy in the Indian camp, the night was darker now, a thin veil of cloud having swept over the stars, otherwise the fate of Dr Lascelles’ expedition would have been sealed. As it was, the Indian kicked the form beside him heavily with his moccasined foot, and then walked slowly away in the direction of the horses.

Some men would have continued their retreat at once, perhaps hurriedly, but Joses was too old a campaigner for such an act. As he lay there, with his face buried deeply in the short herbage, he thought to himself that most probably the waking up of the Indian who had just gone, the kick, and the striding away, would have aroused some of the others, and in this belief he lay perfectly still for quite ten minutes.

Then feeling satisfied that he might continue his retreat, he was drawing himself together for a fresh start, when a man on his right leaped to his feet; another did the same, and after talking together for a few moments they too went off in the direction of the horses.

This decided Joses upon a fresh wait, which he kept up, till feeling that, safe or unsafe, he must make the venture, he once more started, crawling slowly along without making a sound, till he felt it safe to rise to his hands and knees, when he got over the ground far more swiftly, ending by springing to his feet, and listening intently for a few moments, when there was the faint neigh of a horse from the Indian camp.

“If one of ours hears that,” muttered Joses, “he’ll answer, and the Indians will be down upon us before we know where we are.”

Chapter Four.

The Night Alarm.

Bart Woodlaw had not been keeping his renewed watch long before he heard a step behind him, and, turning sharply, found himself face to face with Dr Lascelles.

“Well, my boy,” he said, “is all right?”

“I think so, sir. Did you hear anything?”

“No, my boy, I woke up and just came to see how matters were going. Any alarm?”

“Yes, sir, and no, sir,” replied Bart.

“What do you mean?” exclaimed the Doctor sharply.

“Only that Joses woke up, sir, and I found him watching that mass of rock which you can see out yonder. That one sir—or—no!—I can’t see it now.”

“Why?” said the Doctor, in a quick low decisive tone; “is it darker now?”

“Very little, sir; but perhaps Joses was right: he said he thought there must be a fire out there to make it stand out so clearly, and—”

“Well? speak, my boy! Be quick!”

“Perhaps he was right, sir, for I cannot see the rock there at all.”

“Where is Joses? Why did he not go and see?” exclaimed the Doctor sharply.

“He has been gone nearly an hour, sir, and I was expecting him back when you came.”

“That’s right! But which way? Joses must feel that there is danger, or he would not have left the camp like this.”

Bart pointed in the direction taken by their follower, and the Doctor took a few hasty strides forward, as if to follow, but he came back directly.

“No. It would be folly,” he said; “I should not find him out in this wild. Depend upon it, Bart, that was an Indian fire and camp out beyond the ridge yonder, and he suspected it. These old plainsmen read every sign of earth and sky, and we must learn to do the same, boy, for it may mean the saving of our lives.”

“I’ll try,” said Bart earnestly. “I can follow trail a little now.”

“Yes, and your eyes are wonderfully keen,” replied the Doctor. “You have all the acute sense of one of these hunters, but you want the power of applying what you see, and learning its meaning.”

Bart was about to reply, but the Doctor began walking up and down impatiently, for being more used than his ward in the ways of the plains, he could not help feeling sure that there was danger, and this idea grew upon him to such an extent that at last he roused the men from their sleep, bidding them silently get the horses ready for an immediate start, should it be necessary; and while this was going on, he went into the tent.

“Maude—my child—quick!” he said quietly. “Don’t be alarmed, but wake up, and be ready for a long ride before dawn.”

Maude was well accustomed to obey promptly all her father’s orders, and so used to the emergencies and perils of frontier life that she said nothing, but rapidly prepared for their start, and in a few minutes she was ready, with all her little travelling possessions in the saddle-bags and valise that were strapped to her horse.

Just as the Doctor had seen that all was nearly ready, and that scarcely anything more remained to be done than to strike the little tent, Joses came running up.

“Well! what news?” said the Doctor, hurriedly.

“Injun—hundreds—mile away,” said the plainsman in quick, sharp tones. “Hah! good!” he added, as he saw the preparations that had been made.

“Bart, see to Maude’s horse. Down with the tent, Joses; Harry, help him. You, Juan and Sam, see to the horses.”

Every order was obeyed with the promptitude displayed in men accustomed to a life on the plains, and in a very few minutes the tent was down, rolled up, and on the side of the waggon, the steeds were ready, and all mounting save Juan, who took his place in front of the waggon to drive its two horses, Dr Lascelles gave the word. Joses went to the front to act as pioneer, and pick a way unencumbered with stones, so that the waggon might go on in safety, and the camp was left behind.

Everything depended now upon silence. A shrill neigh from a mare would have betrayed them; even the louder rattle of the waggon wheels might have had that result, and brought upon them the marauding party, with a result that the Doctor shuddered to contemplate. There were moments when, in the face of such a danger, he felt disposed to make his way back to civilisation, dreading now to take his child out with him into the wilderness. But there was something so tempting in the freedom of the life; he felt so sanguine of turning his knowledge of metallurgy to some account; and what was more, it seemed so cowardly to turn back now, that he decided to go forward and risk all.

“We always have our rifles,” he said softly to himself, “and if we can use them well, we may force the Indians to respect us if they will not treat us as friends.”

And all this while the waggon jolted on over the rough ground or rolled smoothly over the flat plain, crushing down the thick buffalo-grass, or smashing some succulent, thorny cactus with a peculiar whishing sound that seemed to penetrate far through the silence of the night. They were journeying nearly due north, and so far they had got on quite a couple of miles without a horse uttering its shrill neigh, and it was possible that by now, silent as was the night, their cry might not reach the keen ears of their enemies, but all the same, the party proceeded as cautiously as possible, and beyond an order now and then given in a low voice, there was not a word uttered.

It was hard work, too, for, proceeding as they were in comparative darkness, every now and then a horse would place its hoof in the burrow of some animal, and nearly fall headlong. Then, too, in spite of all care and pioneering, awheel of the waggon would sink into some hollow or be brought heavily against the side of a rock.

Sometimes they had to alter their direction to avoid heavily-rising ground, and these obstacles became so many, that towards morning they came to a halt, regularly puzzled, and not knowing whether they were journeying away from or towards their enemies.

“I have completely lost count, Bart,” said the Doctor.

“And if you had not,” replied Bart, “we could not have gone on with the waggon, for we are right amongst the rocks, quite a mountain-side.”

“Let’s wait for daylight then,” said the Doctor peevishly. “I begin to think we have done very wrong in bringing a waggon. Better have trusted to horses.”

He sighed, though, directly afterwards, and was ready to alter his words, but he refrained, though he knew that it would have been impossible to have brought Maude if they had trusted to horses alone.

A couple of dreary hours ensued, during which they could do nothing but wait for daybreak, which, when it came at last, seemed cold and blank and dreary, giving a strange aspect to that part of the country where they were, though their vision was narrowed by the hills on all sides save one, that by which they had entered as it were into what was quite a horse-shoe.

Joses and Bart started as soon as it was sufficiently light, rifle in hand, to try and make out their whereabouts, for they were now beyond the region familiar to both in their long rides from ranche to ranche in quest of cattle.

They paused, though, for a minute or two to gain a sort of idea as to the best course to pursue, and then satisfied that there was no immediate danger, unless the Indians should have happened to strike upon their trail, they began to climb the steep rocky hill before them.

“Which way do you think the Indians were going, Joses?” said Bart, as they toiled on, with the east beginning to blush of a vivid red.

“Way they could find people to rob and plunder and carry off,” said Joses gruffly, for he was weary and wanted his breakfast.

“Do you think they will strike our trail?”

“If they come across it, my lad—if they come across it.”

“And if they do?”

“If they do, they’ll follow it right to the end, and then that’ll be the end of us.”

“If we don’t beat them off,” said Bart merrily.

“Beat them off! Hark at him!” said Joses. “Why, what a boy it is. He talks of beating off a whole tribe of Indians as if they were so many Jack rabbits.”

“Well, we are Englishmen,” said Bart proudly.

“Yes, we are Englishmen,” said Joses, winking to himself and laying just a little emphasis upon the men; “but we can’t do impossibilities if we bes English.”

“Joses, you’re a regular old croaker, and always make the worst of things instead of the best.”

“So would you if you was hungry as I am, my lad. I felt just now as if I could set to and eat one o’ them alligators that paddles about in the lagoons, whacking the fishes in the shallows with their tails till they’re silly, and then shovelling of them up with their great jaws.”

“Well, for my part, Joses, I’d rather do as the alligators do to the fish.”

“What, whack ’em with their tails? Why, you ain’t got no tail, Master Bart.”

“No, no! Eat the fish.”

“Oh, ah! yes. I could eat a mess o’ fish myself, nicely grilled on some bits o’ wood, and yah! mind! look out!”

Joses uttered these words with quite a yell as, dropping his rifle, he stooped, picked up a lump of rock from among the many that lay about on the loose stony hill slope they were climbing, and hurled it with such unerring aim, and with so much force, that the hideous grey reptile they had disturbed, seeking to warm itself in the first sunbeams, and which had raised its ugly head threateningly, and begun to creep away with a low, strange rattling noise, was struck about the middle of its back, and now lay writhing miserably amidst the stones.

“I don’t like killing things without they’re good to eat,” said Joses, picking up another stone, and seeking for an opportunity to crush the serpent’s head— “Ah, don’t go too near, boy; he could sting as bad as ever if he got a chance!”

“I don’t think he’d bite now,” said Bart.

“Ah, wouldn’t he! Don’t you try him, my boy. They’re the viciousest things as ever was made. And, as I was saying, I don’t—there, that’s about done for him,” he muttered, as he dropped the piece of rock he held right upon the rattlesnake’s head, crushing it, and then taking hold of the tail, and drawing the reptile out to its full length—“as I was a-saying, Master Bart, I don’t like killing things as arn’t good to eat; but if you’ll put all the rattlesnakes’ heads together ready for me, I’ll drop stones on ’em till they’re quite dead.”

“What a fine one, Joses!” said Bart, gazing curiously at the venomous beast.

“Six foot six and a half,” said Joses, scanning the serpent. “That’s his length to an ’alf inch.”

“Is it? Well, come along; we are wasting time, but do you think rattlesnakes are as dangerous as people say?”

“Dangerous! I should think they are,” replied Joses, as he shouldered his rifle; and they tramped rapidly on to make up for the minutes lost in killing the reptile. “You’d say so, too, if you was ever bit by one. I was once.”

“You were?”

“I just was, my lad, through a hole in my leggings; and I never could understand how it was that that long, thin, twining, scaly beggar should have enough brains in her little flat head to know that it was the surest place to touch me right through that hole.”

“It was strange,” said Bart. “How was it?”

“Well, that’s what I never could quite tell, Master Bart, for that bite, and what came after, seemed to make me quite silly like, and as if it took all the memory out of me. All I can recollect about it is that I was with—let me see! who was it? Ah! I remember now: our Sam; and we’d sat down one hot day on the side of a bit of a hill, just to rest and have one smoke. Then we got up to go, and, though we ought to have been aware of it, we warn’t, there was plenty of snakes about I was just saying to Sam, as we saw one gliding away, that I didn’t believe as they could sting as people said they could, when I suppose I kicked again’ one as was lying asleep, and before I knew it a’most there was a sharp grab, and a pinch at my leg, with a kind of pricking feeling; and as I gave a sort of a jump, I see a long bit of snake just going into a hole under some stones, and he gave a rattle as he went.

“‘Did he bite you?’ says Sam.

“‘Oh, just a bit of a pinch,’ I says. ‘Not much. It won’t hurt me.’

“‘You’re such a tough un,’ says Sam, by way of pleasing me, and being a bit pleased, I very stupidly said,—‘yes, I am, old fellow, regular tough un,’ and we tramped on, for I’d made up my mind that I wouldn’t take no more notice of it than I would of the sting of a fly.”

“Keep a good look-out all round, Joses,” said Bart, interrupting him.

“That’s what I am doing, Master Bart, with both eyes at once. I won’t let nothing slip.”

In fact, as they walked on, Joses’ eyes were eagerly watching on either side, nothing escaping his keen sight; for frontier life had made him, like the savages, always expecting danger at every turn.

“Well, as I was a saying,” he continued, “the bite bothered me, but I wasn’t going to let Sam see that I minded the least bit in the world, but all at once it seemed to me as if I was full of little strings that ran from all over my body down into one leg, and that something had hold of one end of ’em, and kept giving ’em little pulls and jerks. Then I looked at Sam to see if he’d touched me, and his head seemed to have swelled ’bout twice as big as it ought to be, and his eyes looked wild and strange.

“‘What’s matter, mate?’ I says to him, and there was such a ding in my ears that when I spoke to him, Master Bart, my voice seemed to come from somewhere else very far off, and to sound just like a whisper.

“‘What’s the matter with you?’ he says, and taking hold of me, he gave me a shake. ‘Here, come on,’ he says. ‘You must run.’

“And then he tried to make me run, and I s’pose I did part of the time, but everything kept getting thick and cloudy, and I didn’t know a bit where I was going nor what was the matter till, all at once like, I was lying down somewhere, and the master was pouring something down my throat. Then I felt him seeming to scratch my leg as if he was trying to make it bleed, and then I didn’t know any more about it till I found I was being walked up and down, and every now and then some one give me a drink of water as I thought, till the master told me afterwards that it was whisky. Then I went to sleep and dropped down, and they picked me up and made me walk again, and then I was asleep once more, and that’s all. Ah, they bite fine and sharp, Master Bart, and I don’t want any more of it, and so I tell you.”

By this time they had pretty well reached the summit of the rocky hill they had been climbing, and obeying a sign from his companion, Bart followed his example, dropping down and crawling forward.

“I ’spect we shall find we look right over the flat from here,” whispered Joses, sinking his voice for no apparent reason, save the caution engendered by years of risky life with neighbours at hand always ready to shed blood.

“And we should be easily seen from a distance, I suppose?” responded Bart.

“That’s so, Master Bart. The Injun can see four times as far as we can, they say, though I don’t quite believe it.”

“It must be a clever Indian who could see farther than you can, Joses,” said Bart quietly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the other, with a quiet chuckle; “I can see pretty far when it’s clear. Look out.”

Bart started aside, for he had disturbed another rattlesnake, which glided slowly away as if resenting the intrusion, and hesitating as to whether it should attack.

“You mustn’t creep about here with your eyes shut,” said Joses quietly. “It isn’t safe, my lad,—not safe at all. Now you rest there behind that stone. We’re close up to the top. Let me go the rest of the way, and see how things are down below.”

Bart obeyed on the instant, and lay resting his chin upon his arms, watching Joses as he crept up the rest of the slope to where a few rough stones lay about on the summit of the hill, amongst which he glided and then disappeared.

Bart then turned his gaze backward, to look down into the Horse-shoe Valley he had quitted, thinking of his breakfast, and how glad he should be to return with the news that all was well, so that a fire might be lighted and a pleasant, refreshing meal be prepared. But the curve of the hill shut the waggon and those with it from view, so that he glanced round him to see what there was worthy of notice.

This was soon done. Masses of stone, with a few grey-looking plants growing amidst the arid cracks, a little scattered dry grass in patches, and a few bushy-looking shrubs of a dull sagey green; that was all. There were plenty of stones near, one of which looked like a safe shelter for serpent or lizard; and some horny-looking beetles were busily crawling about. Above all the blue sky, with the sun now well over the horizon, but not visible from where Bart lay, and having exhausted all the things worthy of notice, he was beginning to wonder how long Joses would be, when there was a sharp sound close at hand, as if a stone had fallen among some more. Then there was another, and this was followed by a low chirping noise like that of a grasshopper.

Bart responded to this with a very bad imitation of the sound, and, crawling from his shelter, he followed the course taken by his companion as exactly as he could, trying to track him by the dislodged stones and marks made on the few patches of grass where he had passed through. But, with a shrug of the shoulders, Bart was obliged to own that his powers of following a trail were very small. Not that they were wanted here, for at the end of five minutes he could make out the long bony body of Joses lying beside one of the smaller masses of stone that jagged the summit of the hill.

Joses was looking in his direction, and just raising one hand slightly, signed to him to come near.

There seemed to be no reason why Bart should not jump up and run to his side, but he was learning caution in a very arduous school, and carefully trailing his rifle, he crept the rest of the way to where the great stones lay; and as soon as he was beside his companion, he found, as he expected, that from this point the eye could range for miles and miles over widespreading plains; and so clear and bright was the morning air that objects of quite a small nature were visible miles away.

“Well!” said Joses gruffly, for he had volunteered no information, “see anything?”

“No,” said Bart, gazing watchfully round; “no, I can see nothing. Can you?”

“I can see you; that’s enough for me,” was the reply. “I’m not going to tell when you ought to be able to see for yourself.”

“But I can see nothing,” said Bart, gazing eagerly in every direction. “Tell me what you have made out.”

“Why should I tell you, when there’s a chance of giving you a lesson in craft, my lad,—in craft.”

“But really there seems to be nothing, Joses.”

“And he calls his—eyes,” growled the frontier man. “Why, I could polish up a couple o’ pebbles out of the nearest river and make ’em see as well as you do, Master Bart.”

“Nonsense!” cried the latter. “I’m straining hard over the plain. Which way am I to look?”

“Ah, I’m not going to tell you.”

“But we are losing time,” cried Bart. “Is there any danger?”

“Yes, lots.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“But can you see immediate danger?” cried Bart impatiently.

“Yes; see it as plain as plain.”

“But where? No; don’t tell me. I see it,” cried Bart excitedly.

“Not you, young master! where?”

“Right away off from your right shoulder, like a little train of ants crawling over a brown path. I can see: there are men and horses. Is it a waggon-train? No, I am sure now. Miles away. They are Indians.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Joses. “That’s better. That’s a good lesson before breakfast, and without a spy-glass. I shall make a man of you yet, Master Bart.”

“Which way are they going?”

“Nay, I shan’t tell you, my lad. That’s for you to find out.”

“Well, I will directly,” said Bart, shading his eyes. “Where are we now? Oh, I see. Now I know. No; I don’t, they move so slowly. Yes, I can see. They are going towards the north, Joses.”

“Nor’-west, my lad,” said the frontier man; “but that was a pretty good hit you made. Now what was the good of my telling you all that, and letting you be a baby when I want to see you a man.”

“We’ve lost ever so much time, Joses.”

“Nay, we have not, my lad; we’ve gained time, and your eyes have had such a eddication this morning as can’t be beat.”

“Well, let’s get back now. I suppose we may get up and walk.”

“Walk! what, do you want to have the Injuns back on us?”

“They could not see us here.”

“Not see us! Do you suppose they’re not sharper than that. Nay, my lad, when the Injuns come down upon us let’s have it by accident. Don’t let’s bring ’em down upon us because we have been foolish.”

Bart could not help thinking that there was an excess of care upon his companion’s side, and said so.

“When you know the Injuns as well as I do, my lad, you won’t think it possible to be too particular. But look here—you can see the Injuns out there, can’t you?”

“Yes, but they look like ants or flies.”

“I don’t care what they look like. I only say you can see them, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you know Injuns’ eyes and ears are sharper than ours?”

“Not than yours.”

“Well, I know that they are sharper than yours, Master Bart,” said Joses, with a chuckle; “and now look here—if you can see them out there against the dry brown plain miles away, don’t you think they could see us stuck up against the sky here in the bright morning sunshine, all this height above the ground?”

“Well, perhaps they could, if they were looking,” said Bart rather sulkily.

“And they are looking this way. They always are looking this way and every way, so don’t you think they are not. Now let’s go down.”

He set the example of how they should go down, by crawling back for some distance till he was below the ridge and beyond sight from the plain, Bart carefully following his example till he rose, when they started down the hill at as quick a trot as the rugged nature of the ground would permit, and soon after reached the waggon, which the Doctor had drawn into a position which hid it from the view of any one coming up from the entrance of the valley, and also placed it where, in time of peril, they might hold their own by means of their rifles, and keep an enemy at bay even if they did not beat him off.

Chapter Five.

“Surrounded by Indians.”

A good breakfast and a few hours’ rest seemed to put a different aspect upon the face of affairs; the day was glorious, and though the region they were in was arid and wanting in water, there was plenty to interest any one travelling on an expedition of research. A good look-out was kept for Indians, but the party seemed to have gone right away, and to give them ample time to get to a greater distance, Dr Lascelles determined, if he could find a spring anywhere at hand, to stay where they were for a couple of days.

“You see, Bart,” he said, as they hunted about amongst the craggiest part of the amphitheatre where fortune or misfortune had led them, “it does not much matter where we go, so long as it is into a region where Europeans have not penetrated before. Many of these hills are teeming with mineral treasures, and we must come upon some of Nature’s wasting store if we persevere.”

“Then we might find metals here, sir?” said Bart eagerly.

“As likely here as anywhere else. These rocks are partly quartz, and at any time we may come upon some of the stone veined with gold, or stumble upon a place where silver lies in blocks.”

“I hope,” laughed Bart, “when we do, I may stumble right over one of the blocks and so be sure of examining it. I think I should know silver if I found it.”

“I am not so sure,” said the Doctor. “You’ve led a life of a kind that has not made you very likely to understand minerals, but I daresay we shall both know a little more about them before we have done—that is,” he added with a sigh, “if the Indians will leave us alone.”

“We must give them the slip, sir,” said Bart, laughing.

“Perhaps we may, my boy; but we have another difficulty to contend with.”

“What’s that, sir; the distance?”

“No, Bart; I’m uneasy about the men. I’m afraid they will strike sooner or later, and insist upon going back.”

“I’m not, sir,” replied Bart. “I will answer for Joses, and he has only to say he means to go forward, and the others then will keep by his side. Mind that snake, sir.”

The Doctor raised his rifle to fire, but refrained, lest the report should be heard, and drawing back, the rattlesnake did the same; then they continued their journey, the Doctor examining the rocks attentively as he went on, but seeing nothing worthy of notice.

“We must be well on our guard against these reptiles, Bart; that is the first I have seen, and they may prove numerous.”

“They are numerous,” said Bart; and he told of the number he had seen upon the slope above them.

“That settles me upon going forward this evening,” said the Doctor, “for water seems to be very scarce. We must try and strike the river higher up, and follow its course. We shall then have plenty of water always within reach, and find wood and trees and hiding-places.”

“But I thought you wanted to get into a mountainous part, sir, where precious minerals would be found,” said Bart.

“Exactly, my dear boy, and that is just the place we shall reach if we persevere, for it is up in these rocky fastnesses, where the rivers have their sources, and sometimes their beds are sprinkled with the specks and also with pieces of gold that have been washed out of the sides of the mighty hills.”

They went on thoughtfully for a time, the Doctor giving a chip here and a chip there as he passed masses of rock, but nothing rewarded him, and their walk was so uneventful that they saw nothing more than another rattlesnake, the valley being so solitary and deserted that, with the exception of a large hawk, they did not even see a bird.

They, however, found a tiny spring of water which trickled down among the rocks, and finally formed a little pool, ample for supplying their horses with water, and this discovery made the Doctor propose a return.

“I don’t like leaving Maude for long,” he said.

“Joses will watch over her, sir, as safely as you would yourself. You saved his life once he told me.”

“He told you that!” exclaimed the Doctor.

“Yes, sir, when the rattlesnake bit him, and I don’t think he would ever be ungrateful, though I think he feels hurt that you do not place more trust in him.”

“Well, let him prove himself well worthy of my trust,” said the Doctor, bluntly. “I have not found him so ready as he should be in helping me with my plans.”

Here the Doctor became very silent and reserved, and though Bart asked him several questions, and tried to get him into conversation, he hardly spoke, but seemed moody and thoughtful till they were close upon the little camp.

This was hidden from them till they were almost there, for the upper end of the Horse-shoe Valley was extremely rugged, and their way lay in and out among heavy blocks of stone that seemed as if they had been hurled down from the mountain-side.

When they were just about to turn into the narrow opening where the waggon lay and the horses were tethered, the Doctor stooped down to examine some fragments that lay loose about their feet, and the consequence was that Bart went on alone. He was just about to give a peculiar whistle, one used commonly by himself and the men when they wished to signal their whereabouts, when he stopped short, half hidden by the rocks, raised his rifle to his shoulder, and stood ready to fire, while his face, tanned as it was by the sun, turned of a sickly hue.

For a moment he was about to fire. Then he felt that he must rush forward and save Maude. The next moment calmer reflection told him that such help and strength as he could command would be needed, and, slipping back out of sight, he ran to where he had left the Doctor.

He found him sitting down examining by means of a little magnifying-glass one of the fragments of rock that he had chipped off, while his rifle lay across his knee.

He seemed so calm and content that in those moments of emergency Bart almost shrank from speaking, knowing, as he did, how terrible would be the effect of his words.

Just then the Doctor looked up, saw his strange gaze, and dropping the fragments, he leaped to his feet.

“What is it?” he cried; “what is wrong?” and as he spoke the lock of his double rifle gave forth two ominous clicks twice over.

“They have come round while we have been away,” whispered Bart hoarsely.

“They? Who? Our men?”

“No,” panted Bart; “the camp is surrounded by Indians.”

Chapter Six.

A Surgical Operation.

Dr Lascelles’ first movement was to run forward to the help of his child, Bart being close behind.

Then with the knowledge that where there is terrible odds against which to fight, guile and skill are necessary, he paused for a moment, with the intention of trying to find cover from whence he could make deadly use of his rifle. But with the knowledge that Maude must be in the hands of the Indians, whose savage nature he too well knew, his fatherly instinct admitted of no pause for strategy, and dashing forward, he ran swiftly towards the waggon, with Bart close upon his heels.

The full extent of their peril was at once apparent, no less than twelve mounted Indians being at the head of the little valley in a group, every man in full war-paint, and with his rifle across his knees as he sat upon his sturdy Indian pony.

Facing them were Maude, Joses, Juan, and the other two men, who had apparently been taken by surprise, and who, rifle in hand, seemed to be parleying with the enemy.

The sight of the reinforcement in the shape of Bart, and Dr Lascelles made the Indians utter a loud “Ugh!” and for a moment they seemed disposed to assume the offensive, but to Bart’s surprise they only urged their ponies forward a few yards, and then stopped.

“Get behind the waggon, quick, my child,” panted the Doctor, as Bart rushed up to his old companion’s side.

“They came down upon us all at once, master,” said Joses. “They didn’t come along the trail.”

“Show a bold front,” exclaimed the Doctor; “we may beat them off.”

To his surprise, however, the Indians did not seem to mean fighting, one of them, who appeared to be the chief, riding forward a few yards, and saying something in his own language.

“What does he say?” said the Doctor, impatiently.

“I can’t make him out,” replied Joses. “His is a strange tongue to me.”

“He is hurt,” exclaimed Bart. “He is wounded in the arm. I think he is asking for something.”

It certainly had that appearance, for the Indian was holding rifle and reins in his left hand, while the right arm hung helplessly by his side.

It was like weakening his own little force to do such a thing, knowing as he did how treacherous the Indian could be, but this was no time for hesitating, and as it seemed to be as Bart had intimated, the Doctor risked this being a manoeuvre on the part of the Indian chief, and holding his rifle ready, he stepped boldly forward to where the dusky warrior sat calm and motionless upon his horse.

Upon going close up there was no longer any room for doubt. The chief’s arm was roughly bandaged, and the coarse cloth seemed to be eating into the terribly swollen flesh.

That was enough. All the Doctor’s old instincts came at once to the front, and he took the injured limb in his hand.

He must have caused the Indian intense pain, but the fine bronzed-looking fellow, who had features of a keen aquiline type, did not move a muscle, while, as the Doctor laid his rifle up against a rock, the little mounted band uttered in chorus a sort of grunt of approval.

“It is peace, Bart,” said the Doctor. “Maude, my child, get a bowl of clean water, towels, and some bandages. Bart, get out my surgical case.”

As he spoke, he motioned to the chief to dismount, which he did, throwing himself lightly from his pony, not, as a European would, on the left side of the horse, but on the right, the well-trained animal standing motionless, and bending down its head to crop the nearest herbage.

“Throw a blanket down upon that sage-brush, Joses,” continued the Doctor; and this being done, the latter pointed to it, making signs that the chief should sit down.

He did not stir for a few moments, but gazed searchingly round at the group, till he saw Maude come forward with a tin bowl of clean water and the bandages, followed by Bart, who had in his hand a little surgical case. Then he took a few steps forward, and seated himself, laying his rifle down amongst the short shrubby growth, while Juan, Sam, and Harry on the one side, the mounted Indians upon the other, looked curiously on.

Once there was a low murmur among the latter, as the Doctor drew a keen, long knife from its sheath at his belt; but the chief did not wince, and all were once more still.

“He has been badly hurt in a fight,” said the Doctor, “and the rough surgery of his tribe or his medicine-man does not act.”

“That’s it, master,” said Joses, who was standing close by with rifle ready in case of treachery. “His medicine-man couldn’t tackle that, and they think all white men are good doctors. It means peace, master.”

He pointed behind the Doctor as he spoke, and it was plain enough that at all events for the present the Indians meant no harm, for two trotted back, one to turn up a narrow rift that the little exploring party had passed unnoticed in the night, the other to go right on towards the entrance of the rough Horse-shoe.

“That means scouting, does it not?” said Bart.

“I think so,” replied the Doctor. “Yes; these Indians are friendly, but we must be on our guard. Don’t show that we are suspicious though. Help me as I dress this arm. Maude, my child, you had better go into the waggon.”

“I am not afraid, father,” she said, quietly.

“Stay, then,” he said. “You can be of use, perhaps.”

He spoke like this, for, in their rough frontier life, the girl had had more than one experience of surgery. Men had been wounded in fights with the Indians; others had suffered from falls and tramplings from horses, while on more than one occasion the Doctor had had to deal with terrible injuries, the results of gorings from fierce bulls. For it is a strange but well-known fact in those parts, that the domestic cattle that run wild from the various corrals or enclosures, and take to the plains, are ten times more dangerous than the fiercest bison or buffalo, as they are commonly called, that roam the wilds.

Meanwhile the rest of the band leaped lightly down from their ponies, and paying not the slightest heed to the white party, proceeded to gather wood and brush to make themselves a fire, some unpacking buffalo meat, and one bringing forward a portion of a prong-horn antelope.

The Doctor was now busily examining his patient’s arm, cutting away the rough bandages, and laying bare a terrible injury.

He was not long in seeing its extent, and he knew that if some necessary steps were not taken at once, mortification of the limb would set in, and the result would be death.

The Indian’s eyes glittered as he keenly watched the Doctor’s face. He evidently knew the worst, and it was this which had made him seek white help, though of course he was not aware how fortunate he had been in his haphazard choice. He must have been suffering intense pain, but not a nerve quivered, not a muscle moved, while, deeply interested, Joses came closer, rested his arms upon the top of his rifle, and looked down.

“Why, he’s got an arrow run right up his arm all along by the bone, master,” exclaimed the frontier man; “and he has been trying to pull it out, and it’s broken in.”

“Right, Joses,” said the Doctor, quietly; “and worse than that, the head of the arrow is fixed in the bone.”

“Ah, I couldn’t tell that,” said Joses, coolly.

“I wish I could speak his dialect,” continued the Doctor. “I shall have to operate severely if his arm is to be saved, and I don’t want him or his men to pay me my fee with a crack from a tomahawk.”

“Don’t you be afraid of that, master. He won’t wince, nor say a word. You may do what you like with him. Injuns is a bad lot, but they’ve got wonderful pluck over pain.”

“This fellow has, at all events,” said the Doctor. “Maude, my child, I think you had better go.”

“If you wish it, father, I will,” she replied simply; “but I could help you, and I should not be in the least afraid.”

“Good,” said the Doctor, laconically, as he lowered the injured arm after bathing it free from the macerated leaves and bark with which it had been bound up. Then with the Indian’s glittering eyes following every movement, he took from his leather case of surgical instruments, all still wonderfully bright and kept in a most perfect state, a curious-looking pair of forceps with rough handles, and a couple of short-bladed, very keen knives.

“Hah!” said Joses, with a loud expiration of his breath, “them’s like the pinchers a doctor chap once used to pull out a big aching tooth of mine, and he nearly pulled my head off as well.”

“No; they were different to these, Joses,” said the Doctor, quietly, as he took up a knife. “Feel faint, Bart?”

The lad blushed now. He had been turning pale.

“Well, I did feel a little sick, sir. It was the sight of that knife. It has all gone now.”

“That’s right, my boy. Always try and master such feelings as these. Now I must try and make him understand what I want to do. Give me that piece of stick, Bart, it will do to imitate the arrow.”

Bart handed the piece of wood, which the Doctor shortened, and then, suiting the action to his words, he spoke to the chief:

“The arrow entered here,” he said, pointing to a wound a little above the Indian’s wrist, “and pierced right up through the muscles, to bury itself in the bone just here.”

As he spoke, he pushed the stick up outside the arm along the course that the arrow had taken, and holding the end about where he considered the head of the arrow to be.

For answer the Indian gave two sharp nods, and said something in his own tongue which no one understood.

“Then,” continued the Doctor, “you, or somebody else, in trying to extract the arrow, have broken it off, and it is here in the arm, at least six inches and the head.”

As he spoke, he now broke the stick in two, throwing away part, and holding the remainder up against the Indian’s wounded arm.

Again the chief nodded, and this time he smiled.

“Well, we understand one another so far,” said the Doctor, “and he sees that I know what’s the matter. Now then, am I to try and cure it? What would you like me to do?”

He pointed to the arm as he spoke, and then to himself, and the Indian took the Doctor’s hand, directed it to the knife, and then, pointing to his arm, drew a line from the mouth of the wound right up to his elbow, making signs that the Doctor should make one great gash, and take the arrow out.

“All right, my friend, but that is not quite the right way,” said the Doctor. “You trust me then to do my best for you?”

He took up one of the short-bladed knives as he spoke, and pointed to the arm.

The Indian smiled and nodded, his face the next moment becoming stern and fixed as if he were in terrible pain, and needed all his fortitude to bear it.

“Going to cut it out, master?” said Joses, roughly.

“Yes.”

“Let’s give the poor beggar a comforter then,” continued Joses. “If he scalps us afterwards along with his copper crew, why, he does, but let’s show him white men are gentlemen.”

“What are you going to do?” said the Doctor, wonderingly.

“Show you directly,” growled Joses, who leisurely filled a short, home-made wooden pipe with tobacco, lit it at the Indian’s fire, which was now crackling merrily, and returned to offer it to the chief, who took it with a short nod and a grunt, and began to smoke rapidly.

“That’ll take a bit o’ the edge off it,” growled Joses. “Shall I hold his arm?”

“No; Bart, will do that,” said the Doctor, rolling up his sleeves and placing water, bandages, and forceps ready. “Humph! he cannot bend his arm. Hold it like that, Bart—firmly, my lad, and don’t flinch. I won’t cut you.”

“I’ll be quite firm, sir,” said Bart, quietly; and the Doctor raised his knife.

As he did so, he glanced at where nine Indians were seated round the fire, expecting to see that they would be interested in what was taking place; but, on the contrary, they were to a man fully occupied in roasting their dried meat and the portions of the antelope that they had cut up. The operation on the chief did not interest them in the least, or if it did, they were too stoical to show it.

The Doctor then glanced at his savage patient, and laying one hand upon the dreadfully swollen limb, he received a nod of encouragement, for there was no sign of quailing in the chief’s eyes; but as the Doctor approached the point of the knife to a spot terribly discoloured, just below the elbow, the Indian made a sound full of remonstrance, and pointing to the wound above the wrist, signed to his attendant that he should slit the arm right up.

“No, no,” said the Doctor, smiling. “I’m not going to make a terrible wound like that. Leave it to me.”

He patted the chief on the shoulder as he spoke, and once more the Indian subsided into a state of stolidity, as if there were nothing the matter and he was not in the slightest pain.

Here I pause for a few moments as I say— Shall I describe what the Doctor did to save the Indian’s life, or shall I hold my hand?

I think I will go on, for there should be nothing objectionable in a few words describing the work of a man connected with one of the noblest professions under the sun.

There was no hesitation. With one quick, firm cut, the Doctor divided the flesh, piercing deep down, and as he cut his knife gave a sharp grate.

“Right on the arrowhead, Bart,” he said quietly; and, withdrawing his knife, he thrust a pair of sharp forceps into the wound, and seemed as if he were going to drag out the arrow, but it was only to divide the shaft. This he seized with the other forceps, and drew out of the bleeding opening—a piece nearly five inches long, which came away easily enough.

Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he sponged the cut for a while, and directly after, guiding them with the index finger of his left hand, he thrust the forceps once more into the wound.

There was a slight grating noise once again, a noise that Bart, as he manfully held the arm, seemed to feel go right through every nerve with a peculiar thrill. Then it was evident that the Doctor had fast hold of the arrowhead and he drew hard to take it out.

“I thought so,” he said, “it is driven firmly into the bone.”

As he spoke, he worked his forceps slightly to and fro, to loosen the arrowhead, and then, bearing firmly upon it, drew it out—an ugly, keen piece of nastily barbed iron, with a scrap of the shaft and some deer sinew attached.

The Doctor examined it attentively to see that everything had come away, and uttered a sigh of satisfaction, while the only sign the Indian gave was to draw a long, deep breath.

“There, Mr Tomahawk,” said the Doctor, smiling, as he held the arm over the bowl, and bathed the injury tenderly with fresh relays of water, till it nearly ceased bleeding; “that’s better than making a cut all along your arm, and I’ll be bound to say it feels easier already.”

The Indian did not move or speak, but sat there smoking patiently till the deep cut was sewn up, padded with lint, and bound, and the wound above the wrist, where the arrow had entered, was also dressed and bound up carefully.

“There: now your arm will heal,” said the Doctor, as he contrived a sling, and placed the injured limb at rest. “A man with such a fine healthy physique will not suffer much, I’ll be bound. Hah, it’s quite a treat to do some of the old work again.”

The chief waited patiently until the Doctor had finished. Then rising, he stood for a few moments with knitted brows, perfectly motionless; and the frontier man, seeing what was the matter, seemed to be about to proffer his arm, but the Indian paid no heed to him, merely gazing straight before him till the feeling of faintness had passed away, when he stooped and picked up the piece of arrow shaft and the head, walked with them to where his followers were sitting, and held them out for them to see. Then they were passed round with a series of grunts, duly examined, and finally found a resting-place in a little beaver-skin bag at the chiefs girdle, along with his paints and one or two pieces of so-called “medicine” or charms.

Meanwhile the Doctor was busy putting away his instruments, feeling greatly relieved that the encounter with the Indians had been of so friendly a nature.

At the end of a few minutes the chief came back with the large buffalo robe that had been strapped to the back of his pony, spread it before the Doctor, placed on it his rifle, tomahawk, knife, and pouch, and signed to him that they were his as a present.

“He means that it is all he has to give you, sir,” said Bart, who seemed to understand the chief’s ways quicker than his guardian, and who eagerly set himself to interpret.

“Yes, that seems to be his meaning,” replied the Doctor. “Well, let’s see if we can’t make him our friend.”

Saying which the Doctor stooped down, picked up the knife and hatchet and placed them in the chiefs belt, his rifle in the hollow of his arm, and finally his buffalo robe over his shoulders, ending by giving him his hand smilingly, and saying the one word friend, friend, two or three times over.

The chief made no reply, but gravely stalked back to his followers, as if affronted at the refusal of his gift, and the day passed with him lying down quietly smoking in the sage-brush, while the occupants of the Doctor’s little camp went uneasily about their various tasks, ending by dividing the night into watches, lest their savage neighbours should take it into their heads to depart suddenly with the white man’s horses—a favourite practice with Indians, and one that in this case would have been destructive of the expedition.

Chapter Seven.

Another Alarm.

To the surprise and satisfaction of Bart, all was well in the camp at daybreak when he looked round; the horses were grazing contentedly at the end of their tether ropes, and the Indians were just stirring, and raking together the fire that had been smouldering all the night.

Breakfast was prepared, and they were about to partake thereof, when the Doctor took counsel with Joses as to what was best to be done.

“Do you think they will molest us now?” he asked.

“No, master, I don’t think so, but there’s no knowing how to take an Indian. I should be very careful about the horses though, for a good horse is more than an Indian can resist.”

“I have thought the same; and it seems to me that we had better stay here until this party has gone, for I don’t want them to be following us from place to place.”

“There’s a band of ’em somewhere not far away,” said Joses, “depend upon it, so p’r’aps it will be best to wait till we see which way they go, and then go totherwise.”

Soon after breakfast the chief came up to the waggon and held out his arm to be examined, smiling gravely, and looking his satisfaction, as it was very plain that a great deal of the swelling had subsided.

This went on for some days, during which the Indians seemed perfectly content with their quarters, they having found a better supply of water; and to show their friendliness, they made foraging expeditions, and brought in game which they shared in a very liberal way.

This was all very well, but still it was not pleasant to have them as neighbours, and several times over the Doctor made up his mind to start and continue his expedition, and this he would have done but for the fact of his being sure that their savage friends, for this they now seemed to be, would follow them.

At the end of ten days the chief’s arm had wonderfully altered, and with it his whole demeanour, the healthy, active life he led conducing largely towards the cure. But he was always quiet and reserved, making no advances, and always keeping aloof with his watchful little band.

“We are wasting time horribly,” said the Doctor, one morning. “We’ll start at once.”

“Why not wait till night and steal off?” said Maude.

“Because we could not hide our trail,” said Bart. “The Indians could follow us. I think it will be best to let them see we don’t mind them, and go away boldly.”

“That’s what I mean to do,” said the Doctor, and directly they had ended their meal, the few arrangements necessary were made, and after going and shaking hands all round with the stolid Indians, the horses were mounted, the waggon set in motion, and they rode back along the valley. Passing the Indian camp, they arrived at the opening through which, bearing off to the west, the Indians reached the plains, and for hours kept on winding in and out amongst the hills.

It was after sundown that the Doctor called a halt in the wild rocky part that they had reached, a short rest in the very heat of the day being the only break which they had had in their journey. In fact, as darkness would soon be upon them, it would have been madness to proceed farther, the country having become so broken and wild that it would have been next to impossible to proceed without wrecking the waggon.

Their usual precautions were taken as soon as a satisfactory nook was found with a fair supply of water, and soon after sunrise next morning, all having been well during the night, the Doctor and Bart started for a look round while breakfast was being prepared, Bart taking his rifle, as there was always the necessity for supplying the wants of the camp.

“I wonder whether we shall see any more of the Indians,” said Bart, as they climbed up amongst the rocks to what looked almost like a gateway formed by a couple of boldly scarped masses, in whose strata lines various plants and shrubs maintained a precarious existence.

“I wonder they have not followed us before now,” replied the Doctor. “Mind how you come. Can you climb it?”

For answer, Bart leaped up to where the Doctor had clambered as easily as a mountain sheep, and after a little farther effort they reached the gate-like place, to find that it gave them a view right out on to the partly-wooded country beyond. For they had left the level, changeless plain on the other side of the rocks, and the sight of a fresh character of country was sufficient to make the Doctor eagerly take the little telescope he carried in a sling, and begin to sweep the horizon.

As he did so, he let fall words about the beauty of the country.

“Splendid grazing land,” he said, “well-watered. We must have a stay here.” Then lowering his glass, so as to take the landscape closer in, he uttered an ejaculation of astonishment.

“Why, Bart,” he said, “I’m afraid here are the Indians Joses saw that night.”

“Let me look, sir,” cried Bart, stretching out his hand for

the glass, but only to exclaim, “I can see them plainly enough without. Why, they cannot be much more than a mile away.”

“And they seem to be journeying in our direction,” replied the Doctor. “Let’s get back quickly, and try if we cannot find another hiding-place for the waggon.”

Hurrying back, Bart started the idea that these might be the main body of their friendly Indians.

“So much the better for us, Master Bart, but I’m afraid that we shall not be so lucky again.”

“I half fancied I saw our chief amongst them,” said Bart, giving vent to his sanguine feelings.

“More than half fancy, Bart,” replied the Doctor, “for there he sits upon his horse.”

He pointed with his glass, and, to Bart’s astonishment, there in the little wilderness of rocks that they had made their halting-place for the night, was the chief with his eleven followers who were already tethering their horses, and making arrangements to take up their quarters close by them as of old.

“Do you think they mean to continue friendly?” asked Bart uneasily, for he could not help thinking how thoroughly they were at the mercy of the Indians if they proved hostile.

“I cannot say,” replied the Doctor. “But look here, Bart, take the chief with you up to the gap, and show him the party beyond. His men may not have seen them, and we shall learn perhaps whether they are friends or foes.”

On reaching the waggon, as no attempt was made by the Indians to join them or resume intercourse, Bart went straight up to the chief, and made signs to him to follow, which he proceeded to do upon his horse, but upon Bart, pointing upwards to the rocky ascent, he leaped off lightly, and the youth noticed that he was beginning to make use of his injured arm.

In a very short time they had climbed to the opening between the rocks, where, upon seeing that there was open country beyond, the Indian at once crouched and approached cautiously, dropping flat upon the earth next moment, and crawling over the ground with a rapidity that astonished his companion, who was watching his face directly after, to try and read therefrom whether he belonged to the band of Indians in the open park in the land beyond.

To Bart’s surprise, the chief drew back quickly, his face changed, and his whole figure seemed to be full of excitement.

He said a few words rapidly, and then, seeing that he was not understood, he began to make signs, pointing first to the opening out into the plain, and then taking out his knife, and striking with it fiercely. Then he pointed once more to the opening, and to his wounded arm, going through the motions of one drawing a bow.

“Friends, friends, friends,” he then said in a hoarse whisper, repeating the Doctor’s word, and then shaking his head and spitting angrily upon the ground, and striking with his knife.

He then signed to Bart, to follow, and ran down the steep slope just as one of his followers cantered hastily up.

Both had the same news to tell in the little camp, and though the Doctor could not comprehend the Indian chief’s dialect, his motions were significant enough, as he rapidly touched the barrels of his followers’ rifles, and then those of the white party, repeating the word, “Friends.”

The next moment he had given orders which sent a couple of his men up the rocks, to play the part of scouts, while he hurriedly scanned their position, and chose a sheltered place, a couple of hundred yards back, where there was ample room for the horses and waggon, which were quietly taken there, the rocks and masses of stone around affording shelter and cover in case of attack.

“There’s no doubt about their being friends now, Bart,” said the Doctor; “we must trust them for the future, but I pray Heaven that we may not be about to engage in shedding blood.”

“We won’t hurt nobody, master,” said Joses, carefully examining his rifle, “so long as they leave us alone; but if they don’t, I’m afraid I shall make holes through some of them that you wouldn’t be able to cure.”

Just then the Indian held up his hand to command silence, and directly after he pointed here and there to places that would command good views of approaching foes, while he angrily pointed to Maude, signing that she should crouch down closely behind some sheltering rocks.

The Doctor yielded to his wishes, and then, in perfect silence, they waited for the coming of the Indian band, which if the trail were noted, they knew could not be long delayed.

If Bart had felt any doubt before of these Indians with them being friendly, it was swept away now by the thorough earnestness with which they joined in the defence of their little stronghold. On either side of him were the stern-looking warriors, rifle in hand, watchful of eye and quick of ear, each listening attentively for danger while waiting for warnings from the scouts who had been sent out.

As Bart thought over their position and its dangers, he grew troubled at heart about Maude, the sister and companion as she had always seemed to him, and somehow, much as he looked up to Dr Lascelles, who seemed to him the very height of knowledge, strength, and skill, it filled his mind with forebodings of the future as he wondered how they were to continue their expedition to the end without happening upon some terrible calamity.

“Maude ought to have been left with friends, or sent to the city. It seems to me like madness to have brought her here.”

Just then Dr Lascelles crept up cautiously behind him, making him start and turn scarlet as a hand was laid upon his shoulder; for it seemed to him as if the Doctor had been able to read his thoughts.

“Why, Bart,” he said, smiling, “you look as red as fire; you ought to look as pale as milk. Do you want to begin the fight?”

“No,” said Bart, sturdily; “I hope we shan’t have to fight at all, for it seems very horrid to have to shoot at a man.”

“Ever so much more horrid for a man to shoot at you,” said Joses in a hoarse whisper as he crawled up behind them. “I’d sooner shoot twelve, than twelve should shoot me.”

“Why have you left your post?” said the Doctor, looking at him sternly.

“Came to say, master, that I think young miss aren’t safe. She will keep showing herself, and watching to see if you are all right, and that’ll make the Indians, if they come, all aim at her.”

“You are right, Joses,” said the Doctor, hastily; and he went softly back to the waggon, while Joses went on in a grumbling whisper:

“I don’t know what he wanted to bring her for. Course we all like her, Master Bart, but it scares me when I think of what it might lead to if we get hard pressed some of these days.”

“Don’t croak, Joses,” whispered Bart; and then they were both silent and remained watching, for the chief held up his hand, pointing towards the rocks beyond, which they knew that their enemies were passing, and whose tops they scanned lest at any moment some of the painted warriors might appear searching the valley with their keen dark eyes.

The hours passed, and the rocks around them grew painfully heated by the ardent rays that beat down upon them. Not a breath of air reached the corner where such anxious guard was kept; and to add to the discomfort of the watchers, a terrible thirst attacked them.

Bart’s lips seemed cracking and his throat parched and burning, but this was all borne in fortitude; and as he saw the Indians on either side of him, bearing the inconveniences without a murmur, he forebore to complain.

Towards mid-day, when the heat was tremendous, and Bart was wondering why the chief or Dr Lascelles did not make some movement to see whether the strange Indians had gone, and at the same time was ready to declare to himself that the men sent out as scouts must have gone to sleep, he felt a couple of hands placed upon his shoulders from behind, pressing him down, and then a long brown sinewy arm was thrust forward, with the hand pointing to the edge of the ridge a quarter of a mile away.

Dr Lascelles had not returned, and Joses had some time before crept back to his own post, so that Bart was alone amongst their Indian friends.

He knew at once whose was the pointing arm, and following the indicated direction, he saw plainly enough first the head and shoulders of an Indian come into sight, then there was apparently a scramble and a leap, and he could see that the man was mounted. And then followed another and another, till there was a group of half a dozen mounted men, who had ridden up some ravine to the top from the plain beyond, and who were now searching and scanning the valley where the Doctor’s encampment lay.

Now was the crucial time. The neigh of a horse, the sight of an uncautiously exposed head or hand, would have been sufficient to betray their whereabouts, and sooner or later the attack would have come.

But now it was that the clever strategy of the chief was seen, for he had chosen their retreat not merely for its strength, but for its concealment.

Bart glanced back towards the waggon, and wondered how it was that this prominent object had not been seen. Fortunately, however, its tilt was of the colour of the surrounding rocks, and it was pretty well hidden behind some projecting masses.

For quite a quarter of an hour this group of mounted Indians remained full in view, and all the time Bart’s sensations were that he must be seen as plainly as he could see his foes; but at last he saw them slowly disappear one by one over the other side of the ridge; and as soon as the last had gone the chief uttered a deep “Ugh!”

There was danger though yet, and he would not let a man stir till quite half an hour later, when his two scouts came in quickly, and said a few words in a low guttural tone.

“I should be for learning the language of these men if we were to stay with them, Bart,” said the Doctor; “but they may leave us at any time, and the next party we meet may talk a different dialect.”

The chief’s acts were sufficient now to satisfy them that the present danger had passed, and soon after he and his men mounted and rode off without a word.

Chapter Eight.

Rough Customers.

There was nothing to tempt a stay where they were, so taking advantage of their being once more alone, a fresh start was made along the most open course that presented itself, and some miles were placed between them and the last camp before a halt was made for the night.

“We shan’t do no good, Master Bart,” said Joses, as they two kept watch for the first part of the night. “The master thinks we shall, but I don’t, and Juan don’t, and Sam and Harry don’t.”

“But why not?”

“Why not, Master Bart? How can you ’spect it, when you’ve got a young woman and a waggon and a tent along with you. Them’s all three things as stop you from getting over the ground. I don’t call this an exploring party; I call it just a-going out a-pleasuring when it’s all pain.”

“You always would grumble, Joses; no matter where we were, or what we were doing, you would have your grumble. I suppose it does you good.”

“Why, of course it does,” said Joses, with a low chuckling laugh. “If I wasn’t to grumble, that would all be in my mind making me sour, so I gets rid of it as soon as I can.”

That night passed without adventure, and, starting at daybreak the next morning, they found a fine open stretch of plain before them, beyond which, blue and purple in the distance, rose the mountains, and these were looked upon as their temporary destination, for Dr Lascelles was of opinion that here he might discover something to reward his toils.

The day was so hot and the journey so arduous, that upon getting to the farther side of the plain, with the ground growing terribly broken and rugged as they approached the mountain slopes, a suitable spot was selected, and the country being apparently quite free from danger, the tent was set up, and the quarters made snug for two or three days’ rest, so that the Doctor might make a good search about the mountain chasms and ravines, and see if there were any prospect of success.

The place reached was very rugged, but it had an indescribable charm from the varied tints of the rocks and the clumps of bushes, with here and there a low scrubby tree, some of which proved to be laden with wild plums.

“Why, those are wild grapes too, are they not?” said Bart, pointing to some clustering vines which hung over the rocks laden with purpling berries.

“That they be,” said Joses; “and as sour as sour, I’ll bet. But I say, Master Bart, hear that?”

“What! that piping noise?” replied Bart. “I was wondering what it could be.”

“I’ll tell you, lad,” said Joses, chuckling. “That’s young wild turkeys calling to one another, and if we don’t have a few to roast it shan’t be our fault.”

The Doctor was told of the find, and after all had been made snug, it was resolved to take guns and rifles, and search for something likely to prove an agreeable change.

“For we may as well enjoy ourselves, Bart, and supply Madam Maude here with a few good things for our pic-nic pot.”

The heat of the evening and the exertion of the long day’s journey made the party rather reluctant to stir after their meal, but at last guns were taken, and in the hope of securing a few of the wild turkeys, a start was made; but after a stroll in different directions, Joses began to shake his head, and to say that it would be no use till daybreak, for the turkeys had gone to roost.

Walking, too, was difficult, and there were so many thorns, that, out of kindness to his child, the Doctor proposed that they should return to the tent; signals were made to the men at a distance, and thoroughly enjoying the cool, delicious air of approaching eve, they had nearly reached the tent, when about a hundred yards of the roughest ground had to be traversed—a part that seemed as if giants had been hurling down huge masses of the mountain to form a new chaos, among whose mighty boulders, awkward thorns, huge prickly cacti, and wild plums, grew in profusion.

“What a place to turn into a wild garden, Bart!” said the Doctor, suddenly.

“I had been thinking so,” cried Maude, eagerly. “What a place to build a house!”

“And feed cattle, eh?” said the Doctor. “Very pretty to look at, my child, but I’m afraid that unless we could live by our guns, we should starve.”

“Hough—hough—hough!” came from beyond a rugged piece of rock.

“O father!” cried Maude, clinging to his arm.

“Don’t hold me, child,” he said fiercely, “leave my arm free;” and starting forward, gun in hand, he made for the place from whence the hideous half-roaring, half-grunting noise had came.

Before he had gone a dozen steps the sound was repeated, but away to their right. Then came the sharp reports of two guns, and, evidently seeing something hidden from her father and Bart, Maude sprang forward while they followed.

“Don’t go, Missy, don’t go,” shouted Juan, and his cry was echoed by Harry; but she did not seem to hear them, and was the first to arrive at where a huge bear lay upon its flank, feebly clawing at the rock with fore and hind paw, it having received a couple of shots in vital parts.

“Pray keep back, Maude,” cried Bart, running to her side.

“I wanted to see it,” she said with an eager glance around at her father, who came up rapidly. “What is it?”

“It’s the cub half grown of a grizzly bear,” said Dr Lascelles, speaking excitedly now. “Back, girl, to the tent; the mother must be close at hand.”

“On, forward; she’s gone round to the right,” shouted the men behind, who had been trying to get on by another way, but were stopped by the rocks.

“Back, girl!” said the Doctor again. “Forward all of you, steadily, and make every shot tell. Where is Joses?”

Just then the deep hoarse grunting roar came again from a hollow down beyond them, and directly after, as they all hurried forward, each man ready to fire at the first chance, they heard a shot, and directly after came in sight of Joses, with his double rifle to his shoulder taking aim at a monstrous bear that, apparently half disabled by his last shot, was drawing itself up on a great shelving block of stone, and open mouthed and with blood and slaver running from its glistening ivory fangs, was just turning upon him to make a dash and strike him down.

Just then a second shot rang out, and the bear rolled over, but sprang to its feet again with a terrific roar, and dashed at her assailant.

It was impossible to fire now, lest Joses should be hit; and though he turned and fled, he was too late, for the bear, in spite of its huge, ox-like size, sprang upon him, striking him down, and stood over him.

But now was the time, and the Doctor’s and Bart’s rifles both rang out, the latter going down on one knee to take careful aim; and as the smoke cleared away the bear was gone.

“She’s made for those rocks yonder,” cried Juan, excitedly. “We’ll have her now, master. She didn’t seem hurt a bit.”

“Be careful,” cried the Doctor. “Maude, help poor Joses. Go forward, Bart, but mind. She may be fatally wounded now.”

Bart was for staying to help the man who had so often been his companion, but his orders were to go on; he knew that Joses could not be in better hands; and there was the inducement to slay his slayer to urge him forward as he ran with his rifle at the trail over the rocks, and was guided by the savage growling he could hear amidst some bushes to where the monster was at bay.

It was fast approaching the moment when all would be in gloom, and Bart knew that it would be impossible for them to camp where they were with a wounded grizzly anywhere near at hand. Slain the monster must be, and at once; but though the growling was plain enough, the bear was not visible, and ammunition is too costly out in the desert for a single charge to be wasted by a foolish shot.

Juan, Harry, and Sam were all in position, ready to fire, but still the animal did not show itself, so they went closer to the thicket, and threw in heavy stones, but without the least effect, till Juan suddenly exclaimed that he would go right in and drive the brute out.

Bart forbade this, however, and the man contented himself with going a little closer, and throwing a heavy block in a part where they had not thrown before.

A savage grunt was the result, and judging where the grizzly lay, Juan, without waiting for counsel, raised his rifle and fired, dropping his weapon and running for his life the next moment, for the shot was succeeded by a savage yell, and the monster came crashing out in a headlong charge, giving Juan no cause for flight, since his butt made straight for Bart, open mouthed, fiery-eyed, and panting for revenge.

Bart’s first instinct was to turn and run, his second to stand his ground and fire right at the monster, taking deadly aim.

But in moments of peril like his there is little time for the exercise of judgment, and ere he could raise his rifle to his shoulder and take careful aim the bear was upon him, rising up on its hind legs, not to hug him, as is generally supposed to be the habits of these beasts, but to strike at him right and left with its hideously armed paws.

Bart did not know how it happened, but as the beast towered up in its huge proportions, he fired rapidly both barrels of his piece, one loaded with heavy shot for the turkeys, the other with ball, right into the monster’s chest.

As he fired Bart leaped back, and it was well that he did so, for the grizzly fell forward with a heavy thud, almost where he had been standing, clawed at the rocks and stones for a few moments, and then lay perfectly still—dead.

Chapter Nine.

First Searches for Gold.

The three men uttered a loud cheer, and ran and leaped upon their fallen enemy, but Bart ran back, loading his piece as he went, to where he had left the Doctor with poor Joses.

Bart felt his heart beat heavily, and there was a strange, choking feeling of pain at his throat as he thought of rough, surly-spoken Joses, the man who had been his guide and companion in many a hunt and search for the straying cattle; and now it seemed to him that he was to lose one who he felt had been a friend.

“Is he—”

Bart panted out this much, and then stopped in amazement, for, as he turned the corner of some rocks that lay between him and the tent, instead of addressing the Doctor, he found himself face to face with Joses, who, according to Bart’s ideas, should have been lying upon the stones, hideously clawed from shoulder to heel by the monster’s terrible hooks. On the contrary, the rough fellow was sitting up, with his back close to a great block of stone, his rifle across his knees, and both hands busy rolling up a little cigarette.

“Why, Joses,” panted Bart, “I thought—”

“As I was killed? Well, I ain’t,” said Joses, roughly.

“But the bear—she struck you down—I saw her claw you.”

“You see her strike me down,” growled Joses; “but she didn’t claw me, my lad. She didn’t hit out far enough, but she’s tore every rag off my back right into ribbons, and I’m waiting here till the Doctor brings me something else and my blanket to wear.”

“O Joses, I am glad,” cried Bart, hoarsely; and his voice was full of emotion as he spoke, while he caught the rough fellow’s hands in his.

“Don’t spoil a fellow’s cigarette,” growled Joses roughly, but his eyes showed the pleasure he felt. “I say are you glad, though?”

“Glad?” cried Bart, “indeed, indeed I am.”

“That’s right, Master Bart. That’s right. It would have been awkward if I’d been killed.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart, shuddering.

“Why not, my lad? It would though. They’d have had no end of a job to dig down in this stony ground. But you’ve killed the bear among you?”

“Yes; she’s dead enough.”

“That’s well. Who fired the shot as finished her? Don’t say you let Juan or Sam, or I won’t forgive you.”

“I fired the last, and brought her down,” said Bart quietly enough.

“That’s right,” said Joses, “that’s right; you ought to be a good shot now.”

“But are you not hurt at all?” asked Bart.

“Well, I can’t say as I arn’t hurt,” replied Joses, “because she knocked all the wind out of me as she sent me down so quickly, and she scratched a few bits of skin off as well as my clothes, but that don’t matter: skin grows again, clothes don’t. Humph, here comes the Doctor with the things.”

“A narrow escape for him, Bart. But how about the grizzly?”

“Dead, sir, quite dead,” replied Bart. “Are we likely to see Mr Grizzly as well?”

“No, I think not, my boy. Mother and cubs generally go together.”

“Now, Joses, let me dress your back.”

“No, thank ye, master, I can dress myself, bless you.”

“No, no, I mean apply some of this dressing to those terrible scratches.”

“Oh, if that’s what you mean, master, go on. Wouldn’t they be just as well without?”

“No, no; turn round, man.”

Joses obeyed, and Bart shuddered as he saw the scores made by the monster’s hideous claws, though Joses took it all quietly enough, and after the dressing threw his blanket over his shoulders, to walk with his master and Bart, to have a look at the grizzly lying there in the gathering shades of night.

It was a monster indeed, being quite nine feet long, and massive in proportion, while its great sharp curved claws were some of them nearly six inches from point to insertion in the shaggy toes.

Such a skin was too precious as a trophy to be left, and before daylight next morning, Juan, Harry, and Sam were at work stripping it off, Bart, when he came soon after, finding them well on with their task, Joses being seated upon a fragment of rock contentedly smoking his cigarette and giving instructions, he being an adept at such matters, having stripped off hundreds if not thousands of hides in his day, from bison cattle and bear down to panther and skunk.

“I ain’t helping, Master Bart,” he said apologetically, “being a bit stiff this morning.”

“Which is a blessing as it ain’t worse,” said Harry; “for you might have been much worse, you know.”

“You mind your own business,” growled Joses. “You’re whipping off great bits o’ flesh there and leaving ’em on the skin.”

“Well, see how hard it is when it’s cold,” grumbled Harry; and then to Juan, “I shan’t take no notice of him. You see he’s a bit sore.”

Harry was quite right, poor Joses being so sore that for some days he could not mount his horse, and spent his time in drying the two bear-skins in the sun, and dressing them on the fleshy side, till they were quite soft and made capital mats for the waggon.

One morning, however, he expressed himself as being all right, and whatever pains he felt, he would not show the slightest sign, but mounted his horse, and would have gone forward, only the Doctor decided to spend another day where they were, so as to more fully examine the rocks, for he fancied that he had discovered a metallic deposit in one spot on the previous night.

It was settled, then, that the horses should go on grazing in the little meadow-like spot beside a tiny stream close by the waggon, and that the Doctor, Juan, Joses, and Bart should explore the ravine where the Doctor thought he had found traces of gold, while Sam and Harry kept watch by the camp.

For days past the neighbourhood had been well hunted over, and with the exception of a snake or two, no noxious or dangerous creature had been seen; the Indians seemed to have gone right away, and under the circumstances, all was considered safe.

Explorations had shown them that the place they were in rose like, as it were, a peninsula of rocks from amidst a sea of verdure. This peninsula formed quite a clump some miles round, and doubtless it had been chosen as a convenient place by the bear, being only connected with the mountain slope by a narrow neck of débris from the higher ground.

As the party went on, the Doctor told Bart, that his intention was to journey along by the side of the mountain till he found some valley or canyon, up which they could take the waggon, and then search the rocks as they went on whenever the land looked promising.

Upon this occasion, after a few hours’ walk, the Doctor halted by the bed of a tiny stream, and after searching about in the sands for a time he hit upon a likely place, took a small portion of the sand in a shallow tin bowl, and began to wash it, changing the water over and over again, and throwing away the lighter sand, till nothing was left but a small portion of coarser fragments, and upon these being turned out in the bright sunshine and examined, there were certainly a few specks of gold to be seen, but so minute that the Doctor threw them away with a sigh.

“We must have something more promising than that,” he said. “Now I think, Bart, you had better go along that ridge of broken rock close up to the hills, and walk eastward for a few miles to explore. I will go with Juan to the west. Perhaps we shall find a likely place for going right up into the mountains. We’ll meet here again at say two hours before sundown. Keep a sharp look-out.”

They parted, and for the next two hours Bart and Joses journeyed along under what was for the most part a wall of rock fringed at the top with verdure, and broken up into chasms and crevices which were filled with plants of familiar or strange growths.

Sometimes they started a serpent, and once they came upon a little herd of antelopes, but they were not in search of game, and they let the agile creatures go unmolested.

The heat was growing terrific beneath the sheltered rock-wall, and at last, weakened by his encounter with the bear Joses began to show signs of distress.

“I’d give something for a good drink of water,” he said. “I’ve been longing this hour past, and I can’t understand how it is that we haven’t come upon a stream running out into the plain. There arn’t been no chance of the waggon going up into the mountains this way.”

“Shall we turn back?”

“Turn back? No! not if we have to go right round the whole world,” growled Joses. “Come along, my lad, we’ll find a spring somewheres.”

For another hour they tramped on almost in silence, and then all at once came a musical, plashing sound that made Joses draw himself up erect and say with a smile:

“There’s always water if you go on long enough, my lad. That there’s a fall.”

And so it proved to be, and one of extreme beauty, for a couple of hundred yards farther they came upon a nook in the rough wall, where the water of a small stream poured swiftly down, all foam and flash and sparkle, and yet in so close and compact a body that, pulling a cow-horn from his pocket, Joses could walk closely up and catch the pure cold fluid as it fell.

“There, Master Bart,” he said, filling and rinsing out the horn two or three times, “there you are. Drink, my lad, for you want it bad, as I can see.”

“No, you drink first, Joses,” said the lad; but the rough frontier man refused, and it was not until Bart had emptied the horn of what seemed to be the most delicious water he had ever tasted, that Joses would fill and drink.

When he did begin, however, it seemed as if he would never leave off, for he kept on pouring down horn after horn, and smacking his lips with satisfaction.

“Ah, my lad!” he exclaimed at last, “I’ve drunk everything in my time, whiskey, and aguardiente, and grape wine,

and molasses rum, but there isn’t one of ’em as comes up anywhere like a horn of sparkling water like that when you are parched and burnt up with thirst.”

“It is delicious, Joses,” said Bart; “but now had we not better go back?”

“Yes, if we mean to be to our time; but suppose we go a little lower down there into the plain, and try if there’s anything like what the master’s hunting for in the sands.”

They went down for about a quarter of a mile to where there was a smooth sandy reach, and a cup being produced, they set to and washed several lots of sand, in each case finding a few specks but nothing more, and at last they gave it up, when Joses pointed to some footprints in the soil, where there was evidently a drinking-place made by deer.

“What are those?” said Bart, “panthers?”

“Painters they are, my lad, and I daresay we could shoot one if we had time. Make a splendid skin for little Miss. I dessay we could find a skunk or two hereabouts. Eh! nasty? Well, they are, but their fur’s lovely.”

They saw neither panther nor skunk, though footprints, evidently made the previous night, were plentiful about the stream; and now, as time was getting on, they sturdily set themselves to their backward journey, Joses praising the water nearly all the way, when he was not telling of some encounter he had had with Indian or savage beast in his earlier days.

“Do you think we shall see any more of the Indians, Joses?” said Bart at last.

“What, Old Arrow—in—the—arm!”

“Yes.”

“Sure to,” said Joses. “He’s a good fellow that is. ’Taint an Indian’s natur to show he’s fond of you, but that chap would fight for the master to the last.”

“It seemed like it the other day, but it was very strange that he should go off as he did.”

“Not it, my lad. He’s gone to watch them Injuns, safe.”

“Then he will think us ungrateful for going away.”

“Not he. Depend upon it, he’ll turn up one of these days just when we don’t expect it, and sit down just as if nothing had happened.”

“But will he find our trail over such stony ground?”

“Find it? Ah! of course he will, and before you know where you are.”

They trudged on in silence now, for both were growing tired, but just about the time appointed they came within sight of their starting-place, the Doctor meeting them a few minutes later.

“What luck?” he asked.

“Nothing but a glorious spring of water, and a stream with some specks of gold in the washing.”

“I have done little better, Bart, but there is a valley yonder that leads up into the mountains, and with care I think we can get the waggon along without much difficulty.”

Chapter Ten.

A sure-footed Beast.

An early start was made next morning, and following the course mapped out by the Doctor, they soon reached an opening in the hills, up which they turned, to find in the hollow a thread-like stream and that, as they proceeded, the mountains began to open out before them higher and higher, till they seemed to close in the horizon like clouds of delicate amethystine blue.

Every now and then the travelling was so bad that it seemed as if they must return, but somehow the waggon and horses were got over the obstacles, and a short level cheered them on to fresh exertions, while, as they slowly climbed higher and higher, there was the satisfaction of knowing that there was less likelihood of molestation from Indians, the dangerous tribes of the plains, Comanches and Apachés, rarely taking their horses up amongst the rugged portions of the hills.

Maude, in her girlish freshness of heart, was delighted with the variety of scenery, while to Bart all was excitement. Even the labour to extricate the waggon from some rift, or to help to drag it up some tremendous slope, was enjoyable.

Then there were little excursions to make down moist ravines, where an antelope might be bagged for the larder; or up to some dry-looking flat, shut in by the hills, where grouse might be put up amongst the sage-brush and other thin growth, for six hard-working men out in these brisk latitudes consume a great deal of food, and the stores in the waggon had to be saved as much a possible.

One way and the other the larder was kept well supplied, and while Dr Lascelles on the one hand talked eagerly of the precious metal he hoped to discover, Joses was always ready with promises of endless sport.

“Why, by an’ by, Master Bart,” he said one day as they journeyed slowly on, “we shall come to rivers so full of salmon that all you’ve got to do is to pull ’em out.”

“If you can catch them,” said Bart, laughing.

“Catch ’em, my boy? Why, they don’t want no catching. I’ve known ’em come up some rivers so quick and fast that when they got up to the shallows they shoved one another out on to the sides high and dry, and all you’d got to do was to catch ’em and eat ’em.”

“Let’s see, that’s what the Doctor calls a traveller’s tale, Joses.”

“Yes; this traveller’s tale,” said Bart’s companion gruffly. “You needn’t believe it without you like, but it’s true all the same.”

“Well, I’ll try and believe it,” said Bart, laughing, “but I didn’t know salmon were so stupid as that.”

“Stupid! they aren’t stupid, my lad,” replied Joses sharply. “Suppose you and millions of people behind you were walking along a narrow bit o’ land with a river on each side of you, and everybody was pushing on from behind to get up to the end of the bit of land, where there wasn’t room for you all, and suppose you and hundreds more got pushed into the water on one side or on the other, that wouldn’t be because you were so very stupid, would it?”

“No,” said Bart, “that would be because I couldn’t help it.”

“Well, it’s just the same with the salmon, my lad. Millions of ’em come up from out of the sea at spawning time, and they swim up and up till the rivers get narrower and shallower, and all those behind keep pushing the first ones on till thousands die on the banks, and get eaten by the wolves and coyótes that come down then to the banks along with eagles and hawks and birds like them.”

“I beg your pardon, Joses, for not believing you,” said Bart, earnestly. “I see now.”

“Oh, it’s all right enough,” said the rough fellow bluntly. “I shouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, and of course it’s only up the little shallow streams that shoot off from the others.”

This conversation took place some days after they had been in the mountains, gradually climbing higher, and getting glorious views at times, of hill and distant plain. Bart and Joses were out “after the pot,” as the latter called it, and on this occasion they had been very unfortunate.

“I tell you what it is,” said Joses at last, “we shall have to go lower down. The master won’t never find no gold and silver up here, and food’ll get scarcer and scarcer, unless we can come upon a flock of sheep.”

“A flock of sheep up here!” said Bart incredulously.

“I didn’t say salmon, I said sheep,” grunted Joses. “Now, say you don’t believe there is sheep up here.”

“You tell me there are sheep up here,” said Bart, “and I will believe you.”

“I don’t say there are; I only hope there are,” said Joses; “for if we could get one or two o’ them in good condition, they’re the best eating of anything as goes on four legs.”

“But not our sort of sheep?”

“No, of course not. Mountain sheep, my lad, with great horns twisted round so long and thick you get wondering how the sheep can carry ’em, and—there, look!”

He caught Bart by the shoulder, and pointed to a tremendous slope, a quarter of a mile away, where, in the clear pure air, the lad could see a flock of about twenty sheep evidently watching them.

“They’re the shyest, artfullest things as ever was,” whispered Joses. “Down softly, and let’s back away; we must circumvent them, and get behind ’em for a shot.”

“Too late,” said Bart; and he was right, for suddenly the whole herd went off at a tremendous pace along a slope that seemed to be quite a precipice, and the next moment they were gone.

“That’s up for to-day,” said Joses, shouldering his rifle. “We may go back and try and pick up a bird or two. To-morrow we’ll come strong, and p’r’aps get a shot at the sheep, as we know they are here.”

They were fortunate enough to shoot a few grouse on their way back, and next morning at daybreak, Bart and the four men started after the sheep, the Doctor preferring to stay by the waggon and examine some of the rocks.

As the party climbed upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature of these animals.

“They’ll lead you right away into the wildest places,” he said, “and then, when you think you’ve got them, they go over some steep cut, and you never see ’em again. Some people say they jump head first down on to the rocks, and lets themselves fall on their horns, which is made big on purpose, and then bounces up again, but I don’t believe it, for if they did, they’d break their necks. All the same, though, they do jump down some wonderful steep places and run up others that look like walls. Here, what’s Sam making signals for! Go softly.”

They crept up to their companion, and found that he had

sighted a flock of eleven sheep on a slope quite a couple of miles away, and but for the assurance of Joses that it was all right, and that they were sheep, Bart would have said it was a patch of a light colour on the mountain.

As they approached cautiously, however, trying to stalk the timid creatures, Bart found that his men were right, and they spent the next two hours in cautious approach, till they saw that the sheep took alarm and rushed up to the top of the slope, disappeared for a moment, and then came back, to stand staring down at their advancing enemies.

“It’s all right,” exclaimed Joses, “we can get the lot if we like, for they can’t get away. Yonder’s a regular dip down where they can’t jump. Keep your rifles ready, my boys, and we’ll shoot two. That’ll be enough.”

As they spread out and slowly advanced, the sheep ran back out of sight, but came back again, proving Joses’ words, that there was a precipice beyond them and their enemies in front.

Four times over, as the hunting party advanced, did the sheep perform this evolution, but the last time they did not come back into sight.

“They’re away hiding down among the bushes,” said Joses. “Be ready. Now then close in. You keep in the middle here, Master Bart, and have the first shot. Pick a good fat one.”

“Yes,” panted Bart, who was out of breath with the climbing, and to rest him Joses called a halt, keeping a sharp look-out the while to left and right, so that the sheep might not elude them.

At the end of a few minutes they toiled up the slope once more, Joses uttering a few words of warning to his young companion.

“Don’t rush when you get to the top, for it slopes down there with a big wall going right down beyond, and you mightn’t be able to stop yourself. Keep cool, we shall see them together directly.”

But they did not see the sheep cowering together as they expected, for though the top of the mountain was just as Joses had described, sloping down after they had passed the summit and then going down abruptly in an awful precipice, no sheep were to be seen, and after making sure that none were hidden, the men passed on cautiously to the edge, Bart being a little way behind, forcing his way through some thick bushes.

Just then a cry from Joses made him hurry to the edge, but he was too late to see what three of them witnessed, and that was the leap of a magnificent ram, which had been standing upon a ledge ten feet below them, and which, as soon as it heard the bushes above its head parted, made a tremendous spring as if into space, but landed on another ledge, fifty feet below, to take off once more for another leap right out of sight.

“We must go back and round into the valley,” said Juan. “We shall find them all with their necks broken.”

“You’ll be clever if you do,” said Joses, in a savage growl. “They’ve gone on jumping down like that right to the bottom, Master Bart, and—”

“Is that the flock?” said Bart, pointing to where a similar wall of rock rose up from what seemed to be part of a great canyon.

“That’s them,” said Joses, counting, “eight, nine, ten, eleven, and all as fresh as if they’d never made a jump. There, I’ll believe anything of ’em after that.”

“Why, it makes one shudder to look down,” said Bart, shrinking back.

“Shudder!” said Joses, “why, I’d have starved a hundred times before I’d have made a jump like that. No mutton for dinner to-day, boys. Let’s get some birds.”

And very disconsolately and birdless, they made their way back to the camp.

Chapter Eleven.

Bears and for Bears.

Bart was sufficiently observing to notice, even amidst the many calls he had upon his attention, that Dr Lascelles grew more and more absorbed and dreamy every day. When they first started he was always on the alert about the management of the expedition, the proportioning of the supplies and matters of that kind; but as he found in a short time that Bart devoted himself eagerly to everything connected with the successful carrying out of their progress, that Joses was sternly exacting over the other men, and that Maude took ample care of the stores, he very soon ceased troubling himself about anything but the main object which he had in view.

Hence it was then that he used to sling a sort of game-bag over his shoulder directly after the early morning meal, place a sharp, wedge-like hammer in his belt, shoulder his double rifle, and go off “rock-chipping,” as Joses called it.

“I don’t see what’s the good of his loading one barrel with shot, Master Bart, for he never brings in no game; and as for the stones—well, I haven’t seen a single likely bit yet.”

“Do you think he ever will hit upon a good mine of gold or silver, Joses?” said Bart, as they were out hunting one day.

“Well, Master Bart, you know what sort of a fellow I am. If I’d got five hundred cows, I should never reckon as they’d have five hundred calves next year, but just calculate as they wouldn’t have one. Then all that come would be so many to the good. Looking at it fairly, I don’t want to dishearten you, my lad, but speaking from sperience, I should say he wouldn’t.”

“And this will all be labour in vain, Joses?”

“Nay, I don’t say that, Master Bart. He might find a big vein of gold or silver; but I never knew a man yet who went out in the mountains looking for one as did.”

“But up northward there, men have discovered mines and made themselves enormously rich.”

“To be sure they have, my lad, but not by going and looking for the gold or silver. It was always found by accident like, and you and me is much more like to come upon a big lead where we’re trying after sheep or deer than he is with all his regular trying.”

“You think there are mineral riches up in the mountains then?”

“Think, Master Bart! Oh, I’m sure of it. But where is it to be found? P’r’aps we’re walking over it now, but there’s no means of telling.”

“No,” said Bart thoughtfully, “for everything about is so vast.”

“That’s about it, my lad, and all the harm I wish master is that he may find as much as he wants.”

“I wish he may, Joses,” said Bart, “or that I could find a mine for him and Miss Maude.”

“Well, my lad, we’ll keep our eyes open while we are out, only we have so many other things to push, and want to push on farther so as to get among better pasture for the horses. They don’t look in such good condition as they did.”

There was good reason for this remark, their halting-places during the past few days having been in very sterile spots, where the tall forbidding rocks were relieved by very little that was green, and patches of grass were few.

But these were the regions most affected by the Doctor, who believed that they were the most likely ones for discovering treasure belonging to nature’s great storehouse, untouched as yet by man. In these barren wilds he would tramp about, now climbing to the top of some chine, now letting himself down into some gloomy forbidding ravine, but always without success, there being nothing to tempt him to say, “Here is the beginning of a very wealthy mine.”

Every time they journeyed on the toil became greater, for they were in most inaccessible parts of the mountain range, and they knew by the coolness of the air that they must now be far above the plains.

Bart and Joses worked hard to supply the larder, the principal food they obtained being the sage grouse and dusky grouse, which birds they found to be pretty plentiful high up in the mountains wherever there was a flat or a slope with plenty of cover; but just as they were getting terribly tired of the sameness of this diet, Bart made one morning a lucky find.

They had reached a fresh halting-place after sundown on the previous night—one that was extremely attractive from the variety of the high ground, the depths of the chasms around, and the beauty of the cedars that spread their flat, frond-like branches over the mountain-sides, which were diversified by the presence of endless dense thickets.

“It looks like a deer country,” Joses had said as they were tethering the horses amongst some magnificent grass.

These words had haunted Bart the night through, and hence, at the first sight of morning on the peaks up far above where they were, he had taken his rifle and gone off to see what he could find.

Three hours’ tramp produced nothing but a glimpse of some mountain sheep far away and at a very great height.

He was too weary and hungry to think of following them, and was reluctantly making for the camp, when all at once a magnificent deer sprang up from amongst a thicket of young pines, and bounded off at an astounding rate.

It seemed madness to fire, but, aiming well in front, Bart drew trigger, and then leaped aside to get free of the smoke. As he did so, he just caught a glimpse of the deer as it bounded up a steep slope and the next moment it was gone.

Bart felt that he had not hit it, but curiosity prompted him to follow in the animal’s track, in the hope of getting a second shot, and as he proceeded, he could not help wishing for the muscular strength of these deer, for the ground, full of rifts and chasms, over which he toiled painfully in a regular climb, the deer had bounded over at full speed.

It took him some time to get to the spot where he had last seen the deer, when, to his intense surprise and delight, he found traces of blood upon the stones, and upon climbing higher, he found his way blocked by a chasm.

Feeling sure that the animal would have cleared this at a bound, he lowered himself down by holding on by a young pine which bent beneath his weight. Then he slipped for a few feet, made a leap, and came down amongst some bushes, where, lying perfectly dead, was the most beautiful deer he had ever seen.

Unfortunately hunger and the knowledge that others are hungry interfere with romantic admiration, and after feasting his eyes, Bart began to feast his imagination on the delight of those in the camp with the prospect of venison steaks. So, in regular hunter’s fashion, he proceeded to partially skin and dress the deer, cutting off sufficient for their meal, and leaving the other parts to be fetched by the men.

There were rejoicings in camp that morning, and soon after breakfast Bart started off once more, taking with him Joses, Juan, and Sam, all of whom were exceedingly willing to become the bearers of the meat in which they stood in such great need.

The Doctor had gone off in another direction, taking with him Maude as his companion, and after the little party had returned to the camp, Bart was standing thoughtfully gazing at a magnificent eminence, clothed almost to the top with cedars, while in its rifts and ravines were dark-foliaged pines.

“I wonder whether we should find anything up there, Joses,” said Bart.

“Not much,” said the frontier man. “There’d be deer, I daresay, if the sound of your rifle and the coming of the sheep hadn’t sent them away.”

“Why should the sheep send them away?” asked Bart.

“I don’t know why they should,” said Joses; “all I know is that they do. You never find black-tailed deer like you shot and mountain sheep living together as neighbours. It arn’t their nature.”

“Well, what do you say to taking our rifles and exploring?”

“Don’t mind,” said Joses, looking round. “Horses are all right, and there’s no fear of being overhauled by Injuns up here, so let’s go and take Sam with us, but you won’t get no more deer.”

“Well, we don’t want any for a day or two. But why shouldn’t I get another?”

“Because they lie close in the thickest part of the cover in the middle of the day, and you might pretty well tread upon them before they’d move.”

They started directly after, and for about two hours did nothing but climb up amidst cedar and pine forest. Sometimes amongst the trunks of big trees, sometimes down in gashes or gullies in the mountain-side, which were full of younger growths, as if the rich soil and pine seeds had been swept there by the storms and then taken root.

“I tell you what it is, Master Bart,” said Joses, suddenly coming to a halt, to roll up and light his cigarito, a practice he never gave up, “it strikes me that we’ve nearly got to the end of it.”

“End of what?” asked Bart.

“This clump of hills. You see if when we get to the top here, it don’t all go down full swoop like a house wall right bang to the plain.”

“What, like the place where the mountain sheep went down?”

“That’s it, my lad, only without any go up on the other side. It strikes me that we shall find it all plain on this side, and that if we can’t find a break in the wall with a regular gulch, we shall have to go back with our horses and waggon and try some other way.”

“Well, come along and let’s see,” said Bart; and once more they climbed on for quite half-an-hour, when they emerged from the trees on to a rugged piece of open rocky plain, with scattered pines gnarled and twisted and swept bare by the mighty winds, and as far as eye could reach nothing but one vast, well-watered plain.

“Told you so,” said Joses; “now we shall either have to keep up here in the mountain or go down among the Injuns again, just as the master likes.”

“Let’s come and sit down near the edge here and rest,” said Bart, who was fascinated by the beauty of the scene, and, going right out upon a jutting promontory of stone, they could look to right and left at the great wall of rock that spread as far as they could see. In places it seemed to go sheer down to the plain, in others it was broken into ledges by slips and falls of rock; but everywhere it seemed to shut the great plain in from the west, and Bart fully realised that they would have to find some great rift or gulch by which to descend, if their journey was to be continued in this direction.

“How far is it down to the plain?” said Bart, after he had been feasting his eyes for some time.

“Four to five thousand feet,” said Joses. “Can’t tell for certain. Chap would fall a long way before he found bottom, and then he’d bounce off, and go on again and again. I don’t think the mountain sheep would jump here.”

As they sat resting and inhaling the fresh breeze that blew over the widespreading plain, Bart could not help noticing the remains of a grand old pine that had once grown right at the edge of the stupendous precipice, but had gradually been storm-beaten and split in its old age till the trunk and a few jagged branches only remained.

One of these projected from its stunted trunk close down by the roots, and seemed thrust out at right angles over the precipice in a way that somehow seemed to tempt Bart.

He turned his eyes from it again and again, but that branch fascinated him, and he found himself considering how dangerous it would be, and yet how delightful, to climb right out on that branch till it bent and bent, and would bear him no further, and then sitting astride, dance up and down in mid air, right over the awful depths below.

So strange was the attraction that Bart found his hands wet with perspiration, and a peculiar feeling of horror attacked him; but what was more strange, the desire to risk his life kept growing upon him, and as he afterwards told himself, he would no doubt have made the mad venture if something had not happened to take his attention.

Joses was leaning back with half-closed eyes, enjoying his cigárito, and Bart was half rising to his knees to go back and round to where the branch projected, just to try it, he told himself, when they heard a shout away to the left, and that shout acted like magic upon Bart.

“Why, that’s Sam,” he said, drawing a breath full of relief, just as if he had awakened from some terrible nightmare.

“I’d ’bout forgotten him,” said Joses lazily. “Ahoy! Oho!—eh!” he shouted back. Then there was another shout and a rustling of bushes, a grunting noise, and Bart seized his rifle.

“He has found game,” he said.

Then he nearly let fall his piece, and knelt there as if turned to stone, for, to his horror, he suddenly saw Sam down upon his hands and knees crawling straight out on the great gnarled branch that overhung the precipice, keeping to this mode of progression for a time, and then letting his legs go down one on each side of the branch, and hitching himself along, yelling lustily the while for help.

“He has gone mad,” cried Bart, and as he spoke he thought of his own sensations a few minutes before, and how he had felt tempted to do this very thing.

“No, he arn’t,” said Joses, throwing the remains of his cigárito over the precipice, and lifting his rifle; “he’s got bears after him.”

Almost as he spoke the great rough furry body of an enormous black bear came into sight, and without a moment’s hesitation walked right out along the branch after the man.

“There’s another,” cried Bart, “shoot, Joses, shoot. I dare not.”

It seemed that Joses dare not either, or else the excitement paralysed him, for he only remained like Bart, staring stupidly at the unwonted scene before them as a second bear followed the first, which, in spite of Sam’s efforts to get into safety, had overtaken him, crept right upon him, and throwing its

forepaws round him and the branches as well, hugged him fast, while the second came close up and stood there growling and grunting and patting at its companion, who, fortunately for Sam, was driving the claws at the ends of its paws deeply into the gnarled branch.

“If I don’t fire they’ll kill him,” muttered Joses, as the huge branch visibly bent with the weight of the three bodies now upon it. “If I kill him instead it would be a mercy, so here goes.”

He raised his rifle, took careful aim, and was about to draw the trigger, but forbore, as just then the report of Bart’s piece rang out, and the second bear raised itself up on its hind legs, while the foremost backed a couple of feet, and stood growling savagely with its head turned towards where it could see the smoke.

That was Bart’s opportunity, and throwing himself upon his breast, and steadying his rifle upon a piece of rock, he fired again, making the foremost bear utter a savage growl and begin tearing furiously at its flank.

Then Joses’ rifle spoke, and the first bear reared up and fell over backwards, a second shot striking the hindmost full in the head, and one after the other the two monsters fell headlong, the first seeming to dive down, making a swimming motion with its massive paws, the second turning over back downwards.

They both struck the rock about fifty feet below the branch, and this seemed to make them glance off and fly through the air at a fearful rate, spinning over and over till they struck again at an enormous distance below, and then plunged out of sight, leaving Bart sick with horror to gaze upon the unfortunate Sam.

Chapter Twelve.

Sam gets a Fright.

Bart was brought to his senses by Joses, who exclaimed sharply:

“Load, my lad, load; you never know when you may want your piece.”

Bart obeyed mechanically as Joses shouted:

“Now then, how long are you going to sit there?”

Sam, who was seated astride the gnarled old limb, holding on tightly with both hands, turned his head slightly and then turned it back, staring straight down into the awful depths, as if fascinated by the scene below.

“Here, hi! Don’t sit staring there,” cried Joses. “Get back, man.”

Sam shook his head and seemed to cling the more tightly.

“Are you hurt, Sam?” cried Bart.

Sam shook his head.

“Why don’t you speak?” roared Joses, angrily. “Did the beasts claw you?”

Sam shook his head, but otherwise he remained motionless, and Bart and Joses went round to where the tree clung to the rocky soil, and stood gazing out at their companion and within some fifteen feet of where he clung.

“What’s the matter, Sam; why don’t you come back?” asked Bart.

The man responded with a low groan.

“He must be badly hurt, Joses,” exclaimed Bart. “What are we to do?”

“Wait a moment till I think,” said Joses. “He’s hurt in his head, that’s what’s the matter with him.”

“By the bears’ claws?”

“No, my lad, they didn’t hurt him. He’s frit.”

“Frightened?” said Bart.

“Yes! He’s lost his nerve, and daren’t move.”

“Let’s say a few encouraging words to him.”

“You may say thousands, and they won’t do no good,” said Joses. “He’s got the fright and badly too.”

“But the bears are gone?”

“Ay, that they are, my lad; but the fall’s there, and that’s what he’s afraid of. I’ve seen men look like that before now, when climbing up mountains.”

“But it would be so easy to get back, Joses. I could do it directly.”

“So could he if he hadn’t lost his nerve. Now what’s to be done?”

“Shall I creep out to him?” said Bart eagerly.

“What, you? what good would it do? You don’t think you could carry him back like a baby?”

“No,” said Bart, “but I might help him.”

“You couldn’t help him a bit,” growled Joses, “nor more could I. All the good you could do would be to make him clutch you and then down both would go at once, and what’s the use of that.”

“If we had brought a lasso with us.”

“Well, if we had,” said Joses, “and could fasten it round him, I don’t believe we could haul him off, for he’d only cling all the tighter, and perhaps drag us over the side.”

“What is to be done then?” said Bart. “Here, Sam, make an effort, my lad. Creep back; it’s as easy as can be. Don’t be afraid. Here, I will come to you.”

He threw down his gun, and before Joses could stop him, he climbed out to the projecting limb, and letting his legs go down on either side, worked himself along till he was close behind Sam, whom he slapped on the back.

“There,” cried Bart. “It’s easy enough. Don’t think of how deep down it is. Now I’m going back. You do the same. Come along.”

As he spoke and said encouraging things to Sam, Bart felt himself impelled to gaze down into the depths beneath him, and as he did so, the dashing bravery that had impelled him to risk his life that he might encourage his follower to creep back, all seemed to forsake him, a cold perspiration broke out on face and limbs, accompanied by a horrible paralysing sense of fear, and in an instant he was suffering from the same loss of nerve as the man whom he wished to help.

Bart’s hands clutched at the rough branch, and he strove to drive his finger nails into the bark in a spasmodic effort to save himself from death. He was going to fall. He knew that he was. Nothing could save him—nothing, and in imagination he saw himself lose his hold of the branch, slip sidewise, and go down headlong as the bears had fallen, to strike against the rocks, glance off, and then plunge down, down, swifter and swifter into space.

The sensation was fearful, and for the time being he could make no effort to master it. One overwhelming sense of terror had seized upon him, and this regularly froze all action till he now crouched as helpless and unnerved as the poor fellow before him who never even turned his head, but clung to the branch as if insensible to everything but the horrors of his position.

Joses shouted to him, and said something again and again, but Bart only heard an indistinct murmur as he stared straight down at the tops of the pines and other trees half a mile below him; and then came a dreamy, wondering feeling, as to how much pain he should feel when he fell; how long he would be going down all that distance; whether he should have to fall on the tops of the pine-trees, or amongst the rough ravines of rock.

And so on, thought after thought of this kind, till all at once, as if out of a dream, a voice seemed to say to him:

“Well, I shouldn’t have thought, Master Bart, as I’d taught all these years, was such a coward!”

The words stung him, and seemed to bring him back to himself.

Coward! what would Maude think of him for being such a coward? Not that it would much matter if he fell down there and were smashed to death. What would the Doctor, who had given him so many lessons on presence of mind, coolness in danger, and the like? And here was he completely given up to the horror of his position, making no effort when it was perhaps no harder to get back than it had been to get forward.

“I won’t think of the depth,” said Bart, setting his teeth, and, raising himself upright, he hitched himself a few inches back.

Then the feeling of danger came upon him once more, and was mastering him again rapidly, when the great rough voice of old Joses rang out loudly in a half-mocking, half-angry tone:

“And I thought him such a brave un too.”

“And so I will be,” muttered Bart, as he made a fresh effort to recover from his feeling of panic; and as he did so, he hitched himself along the branch towards the main trunk with his back half turned, threw one leg over so that he was in a sitting position, and the next minute he was standing beside Joses, with his heart beating furiously, and a feeling of wonderment coming over him as to why it was that he had been so frightened over such a trifling matter.

“That’s better, my lad,” said Joses quietly; and as Bart gazed on the rough fellow’s face, expecting revilings and reproaches at his cowardice, he saw that the man’s bronzed and swarthy features looked dirty and mottled, his eyes staring, and that he was dripping with perspiration.

Just then Joses gripped him by the shoulder in a way that would have made him wince, only he did not want to show the white feather again, and he stood firm as his companion said:

“’Taint no use to talk like that to him. It won’t touch him, Master Bart. It’s very horrid when that lays hold of you, and you can’t help it.”

“No,” said Bart, feeling relieved, “I could not help it.”

“Course you couldn’t, my lad. But now we must get old Sam back, or he’ll hang there till he faints, and then drop.”

“O Joses!” cried Bart.

“I only wish we could get a bear on the bough beyond him there. That would make him scuffle back.”

“Frighten him back?” said Bart.

“Yes; one fright would be bigger than the other, and make him come,” said Joses.

“Do you think that if we frightened him, he would try to get back then?” whispered Bart.

“I’m sure of it,” said Joses.

“Do as I do then,” said Bart, as he picked up his rifle. Then speaking loudly he exclaimed:

“Joses; we must not leave the poor fellow there to die of hunger. He can’t get back, so let’s put him out of his misery at once. Where shall I aim at? His heart?”

“No, no, Master Bart; his head. Send a bullet right through his skull, and it’ll be all over at once. You fire first.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Bart rested the barrel of his rifle against the trunk, took careful aim, and fired so that the bullet whistled pretty closely by Sam’s ear.

The man started and shuddered, seeming as if he were going to sit up, but he relapsed into the former position. “I think I can do it, Master Bart, this time,” said Joses; and laying his piece in a notch formed by the bark, he took careful aim, and fired, his bullet going through Sam’s hat, and carrying it off to go fluttering down into the abyss.

This time Sam did not move, and Bart gazed at Joses in despair.

“He’s too artful, Master Bart,” whispered the latter: “he knows we are only doing it to frighten him. I don’t know how to appeal to his feelings, unless I was to say, ‘here’s your old wife a-coming, Sam,’ for he run away from her ten years ago. But it wouldn’t be no good. He wouldn’t believe it.”

Bart hesitated for a few moments as he reloaded his rifle, and then he shouted to Sam:

“Now, no nonsense, Sam. You must get back.”

The man paid no heed to him, and Bart turned to Joses to say loudly:

“We can’t leave him here like this. He must climb back or fall, so if he won’t climb back the sooner he is out of his misery the better.”

“That’s a true word,” said Joses.

“Give me your axe then,” said Bart, and Joses drew it from his belt, when Bart took it, and after moistening his hands, drove it into the branch just where it touched the tree, making a deep incision, and then drove it in again, when a white, wedge-shaped chip flew out, for the boy had been early in life taught the use of the axe.

Then cutting rapidly and well, he sent the chips flying, while every stroke sent a quiver along the great branch.

Still Sam clung to the spot where he had been from the first, and made no effort to move; and at last, when he was half-way through the branch, Bart stopped short in despair, for the pretence of cutting it off had not the slightest effect upon Sam.

“Tired, Master Bart?” cried Joses just then; and snatching away the axe, he began to apply it with tremendous effect, the chips flying over the precipice, and a great yawning opening appearing in the upper part of the branch.

“Don’t cut any farther, Joses,” whispered Bart; “it will give way.”

“I shall cut till it begins to, Master Bart,” replied the man; and as he spoke he went on making the chips fly, but still without effect, for Sam did not move.

“I shall have to give up directly, my lad,” whispered Joses, with a peculiar look; “but I’ll have one more chop.”

He raised the axe, and delivered another sharp blow, when there was a loud crack as if half a dozen rifles had gone off at once, and almost before the fact could be realised the branch went down, to remain hanging only by a few tough portions of its under part.

Bart and Joses looked over the precipice aghast at what they had done, and gazed down at Sam’s wild face, as, with his legs dislodged from their position, he seemed to have been turned right over, and to be clinging solely in a death grip with his arms.

Then, with cat-like alacrity, he seemed to wrench himself round, holding on to the lower part of the bough with his legs; and the next moment he was climbing steadily up, with the bough swinging to and fro beneath his weight.

It was a question now of the toughness of the fibres by which the bough hung; and the stress upon the minds of the watchers was terrible, as they crouched there, gazing over the edge of the awful precipice, momentarily expecting to see branch and man go headlong down as the bears had fallen before them.

But Sam climbed steadily up during what seemed to be a long time, but which was only a few moments, reaching at last the jagged points where the branch was broken, when there came an ominous crack, and Sam paused, as if irresolute.

“Keep it up,” panted Bart, and his words seemed to electrify the man, who made one or two more clutches at the branch, and then he was in safety beside his companions, staring stupidly from one to the other.

“I didn’t think I was going to get back,” he said at last. “It was you cutting the branch did it. I shouldn’t have moved else.”

There was no show of resentment—no annoyance at having been treated in this terrible manner. Sam only seemed very thankful for his escape, and trotting off to where he had dropped his rifle when pursued by the bears, he rejoined his companions, and proceeded with them back towards the camp; for they had not the least idea where to find a way down into the plain, even if they had entertained any desire to try and get the skins and some steaks off the bears.

As they journeyed on, Sam related how he had suddenly come upon one of the bears feeding upon the fruit of a clump of bushes, and as the animal seemed tame and little disposed to fly from him he had refrained from firing, but had picked up a lump of rock and thrown it at the beast.

The stone hit its mark, and uttering a loud grunting yell, the bear charged its assailant, Sam to his horror finding that the cry had brought a second enemy into the field, when he dropped his rifle, fled for his life, and took refuge from the following danger in the way and with the result that we have seen.

Chapter Thirteen.

Black Boy amuses himself.

Upon learning the fact that they had so nearly crossed the ridge of mountains, the Doctor resolved next day to proceed as far as the point where the adventure with the bears had taken place, and there endeavour, by the aid of his glass, to determine which direction to take: whether to find a ravine by which they might descend into the plain, or whether it would be better to remain amongst these mountains, and here continue his search.

The place was reached in due time, and for the time being there seemed to be no chance of getting down into the plain, either to search for the bears or to pursue their course in that direction.

The Doctor examined the slopes and ravines, plunged down into the most sheltered chasms, and chipped at the fragments of rock, but no sign of silver rewarded the search, and their journey would have been useless but for the fact that, as they were making a circuit, Joses suddenly arrested them, for he had caught a glimpse of a little flock of mountain sheep, and these he and Bart immediately set themselves to try and stalk.

It was no easy task, for the little group were upon a broad shelf high above them, and in a position that gave them an excellent opportunity for seeing approaching danger. But this time, after taking a long circuit, the hunters were rewarded by finding themselves well within shot, and only separated from the timid beasts by some rugged masses of rock.

These they cautiously approached, crawling upon hands and knees, when, after glancing from one to the other by way of signal, Bart and Joses fired exactly together, with the result that a splendid young ram made a bound into the air and rolled over the edge of the shelf, falling crashing down amongst the bushes and loose stones, to land at last but a very short distance from where the Doctor was awaiting his companions’ return.

The most remarkable part of the little hunt, though, was the action of the rest of the flock, which went off with headlong speed to the end of the shelf of the mountain, where they seemed to charge the perpendicular face of the rock and run up it like so many enlarged beetles, to disappear directly after over the edge of the cliff upon which they had climbed.

“At last!” panted Bart eagerly. “We shall have something good in the larder to-day instead of running short.”

“Just you wait till you’ve tasted it,” said Joses, as he came up, drew his knife, and he and Sam rapidly dressed the sheep, getting rid of the useless parts, and dividing it so that each might have a share of the load back to camp, where Joses’ words proved true, the various joints being declared to be more delicious than any meat the eaters had tasted yet.

In these thorough solitudes amongst the hills the practice of keeping watch had not been so strictly attended to as during the journeying in the plains, for the horse—Indians seldom visited these rugged places,—in fact, none but the searchers after mineral treasures were likely to come into these toilsome regions. Hence it was then that the next night the party were so wanting in vigilance.

Harry had been appointed to the latter half of the night, and after diligently keeping guard through the earlier hours, Joses awakened his successor, and fully trusting in his carrying out his duties, went and lay down in his blanket, and in a few seconds was fast asleep.

That morning at sunrise, after a delicious night’s rest, Bart rose to have a look round before breakfast, when to his horror he saw that the camp was apparently in the hands of the Indians, who had been allowed by the negligent sentinel to approach while those who would have defended it slept.

Bart’s first movement was to seize his gun, his next to arouse the Doctor.

Then he stopped short, sorry for what he had done, for just then, free from all sling and stiffness in his wounded arm, their old friend the chief came striding across the open space before the waggon, and upon seeing Bart held out his hands in token of friendship.

Bart shook hands with him, and as he glanced round he could see that the faces of those around were all familiar except one, whom the chief had beckoned to approach, which the strange Indian did with a stately air, when a short conversation between them and the chief took place, after which the new-comer turned to Bart, and said in very fair English:

“The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth bids me tell you that he has been back to his people to fetch one of his warriors who can speak the tongue of the pale-faced people, and I am that warrior. The great chief Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says it is peace, and he comes to see his friends and the great medicine-man, who brought him back to life when wounded by the poisonous arrows of the Indian dogs of the plains.”

“We are very glad to see Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth again,” cried Bart heartily, “and delighted to find he has brought a great warrior who can speak our language.”

“So that it flows soft and sweet,” said a hoarse voice, and Joses stood up. “How are you, chief?”

The hearty, friendly look and extended hand needed no interpretation, and the greeting between them was warm enough to bring smiles into the faces of all the Indians, who had no scruple soon afterwards about finishing the mountain mutton.

After the breakfast Bart and the Doctor learned that the chief Beaver, as it was settled to call him, had been off really on purpose to get an interpreter, knowing that he could find the trail of his friends again; and this he had done, following them right into the mountains, and coming upon them as we have seen.

Conversation was easy now, and Bart learned that their friends had had a severe fight in the plains a short time before the first meeting, and that the Beaver had felt sure that he would die of his wound, and be left in the wilderness the same as they had left fifteen of their number, the odds against them having been terribly great.

Later on came questions, the Beaver being anxious to know why the Doctor’s party were there.

“You have not come upon the war-path,” the Beaver said, “for you are weak in number, and you have brought a woman. Why are you here?”

Then the Doctor explained his object—to find a vein of either gold or silver somewhere in the mountains; and as soon as it was all interpreted, the chief laughed outright.

“He does not set much store by the precious metals, Bart,” said the Doctor, “and when I see the simplicity of their ways, it almost makes me ashamed of our own.”

Just then the Beaver talked earnestly for a few moments with the warrior who interpreted, and returned to the Doctor.

“The Beaver-with-the-Sharp-Teeth says you gave him life when all was growing black, and he thought to see his people never more; and now he says that he rejoices that he can take his brother across the plains to where a great river runs deep down by the side of a mighty mountain, where there is silver in greater quantities than can be carried away.”

“Does the chief know of such a place?” cried the Doctor, excitedly.

“Yes; he and I have seen it often,” said the Indian.

“And will he take me there?”

“Yes; the Beaver will take his brother there, and give it all into his hands.”

“At last!” cried the Doctor excitedly. Then in a low voice, “Suppose it should not prove to be silver after all?”

“I know it is silver,” said the Indian, quietly. “Look,” he cried, taking a clumsily-made ring from his medicine-bag. “That came from there, so did the ring upon the lariat of the chief.”

“Ask him when he will take me there!” cried the Doctor.

“He says now,” replied the Indian, smiling at the Doctor’s eagerness and excitement. “It is a long way, and the plains are hot, and there is little water; but we can hunt as we go, and all will be well.”

“You know the way from here down into the plain?” said the Doctor. “It is a long way, is it not?”

The Indian smiled. “It is a very short journey,” he said. “I know the way.”

In effect they started as soon as the camp was struck, and the Beaver, leading the way, took them down a deep gulch, of whose existence they were unaware, by which they made an easy descent into the plain, and into which they passed with such good effect that at sunset the bold bluff where the adventure with the bears had taken place stood up in the distance, with the steep wall falling away on either side, looking diminutive in the distance, and very different to what it really was.

They had had a rapid progress over a long range of perfectly level plain, the horses, after the toils in the mountains, seeming quite excited at having grass beneath their feet; and hence it was that when they were camping for the night, and Bart’s beautiful cob with long mane and tail had been divested of saddle and bridle, and after being watered was about to be secured by its lariat to the tether-peg, the excitable little creature, that had been till now all docility and tractableness, suddenly uttered a shrill neigh, pranced, reared up, and before Bart could seize it by the mane, went off across the plain like the wind.

The loss of such a beast would have been irreparable, and the Doctor and Joses ran to untether their horses to join pursuit, but before they could reach them, the Beaver and half a dozen of his men were after the cob at full speed, loosing their lariats as they rode and holding them over their heads ready to use as lassoes as soon as they could get within reach of the fugitive.

No easy task this, for as, dolefully enough, Bart looked on from the waggon, he could see his little horse keeping a long distance ahead, while now the Indians seemed to be making to the left to try and cut the restive little creature off, as he made for a wild-looking part of the plain about a couple of miles away.

Bart was helpless, for there was no horse of their own left that was of the slightest use for pursuit of his swift little cob, and all he could do was to stare after those engaged in the pursuit in a hopeless way as the truant galloped on at full speed, swishing its tail, tossing its head, and apparently revelling in its newly-found liberty.

All at once Bart became aware of the fact that one of the

Indians had been for some minutes watching him attentively, and the man had uttered a low guttural laugh as if he were enjoying the youth’s misfortune.

“I wonder how he would like it,” thought Bart, as he darted an indignant look at the Indian, who sat upon his swift pony like a group cut in bronze. “He might just as well have gone after Black Boy, for his pony looks as if it could go.”

Just then the Indian threw himself lightly from his nag and drew near to Bart, with the horse-hair rein in his hand. Then he made signs to the young fellow to mount.

“Do you mean that you will lend me the pony to go after my own?” said Bart eagerly.

The Indian did not understand his words, but evidently realised their meaning, for he smiled and nodded, and placed the rein in Bart’s hand, when he leaped into the saddle, or rather into the apology for a saddle, for it was only a piece of bison hide held on by a bandage, while a sort of knob or peg was in the place of the pommel, a contrivance invented by the Indians to hold on by when attacking a dangerous enemy, so as to lie as it were alongside of their horse, and fire or shoot arrows beneath its neck, their bodies being in this way thoroughly protected by their horses.

The Indian smiled and drew back when Bart touched the pony with his heel, the result being that, instead of going off at a gallop, the little restive beast reared up, pawing at the air with its hoofs, and nearly falling backwards upon its rider.

The Indian looked on intently as if ready to leap forward and seize the bridle should Bart be dismounted. But the lad kept his seat, and the pony went on all fours again, but only to begin kicking furiously, to dislodge the strange white-faced being upon its back. It was like an insult to an animal that had been accustomed to carry true-blooded Indians all its life, dressed in skins ornamented with feathers and neatly painted up for special occasions, to have a pale-faced, undersized human animal in strange clothes mounted upon it; and the proper thing seemed to be to kick him off as soon as it could.

These seemed to be the ideas of the Indian pony as exemplified by its acts; but the wildest of animals of the horse family cannot always do as they please, and it was evidently with something like astonishment that the little steed found Bart, still fixed firmly upon its back instead of flying over its head or slipping off backwards over the tail.

This being so, the pony began to what is called “buck,” that is to say, instead of letting its back remain in an agreeable hollow curve, one which seems to have been made by nature on purpose to hold a human being, it curved its spine in the opposite direction, arching it as a cat would, but of course in a modified way, and then began leaping up from the earth in a series of buck jumps, all four hoofs from the ground at once.

Still, in spite of this being the most difficult form of horse trouble to master, Bart kept his seat. He was jerked about a great deal, but he had been long used to riding restive horses, and he sat there as coolly as if in a chair.

Then the Indian pony uttered a few shrill snorts and squeaks, throwing up its head, and finally turning round, first on one side then upon the other, it tried to bite its rider’s legs—attacks which Bart met by a series of sharp blows, given with the lariat that was coiled by the horse’s neck.

These pranks went on for a few minutes, the Indian looking smilingly on the while, till, seeing that Bart was not to be dislodged, the pony began to back and finally lay down.

This of course dismounted the rider, and with a snort of triumph the pony sprang to its feet again, evidently meaning to bound off after Black Boy and enjoy a turn of freedom.

The pony had reckoned without its rider, for Bart was too old at such matters to leave his grasp of the rein, and the Indian cob’s first knowledge of its mistake was given by a sharp check to its under jaw, round which the horse-hair rope was twitched, the next by finding its rider back in his old place where he had leaped as lightly as could be.

The Indian gave an approving grunt, and uttering what was quite a sigh, the pony resigned itself to its fate, and obeying the touch of Bart’s heel, went off at a fine springing gallop.

It was a long chase and an arduous one, for Black Boy seemed to laugh to scorn all attempts at capture—of course these were horse-laughs—and led his pursuers a tremendous run; and had it not been for his master, late as he was in the field, the cob would not have been captured that night. As it was, Bart went off at speed, setting at defiance prairie-dogs’ burrows, and other holes that might be in his way, and at last he contrived to cut off a corner so as to get nearer to his nag, when, taking the rein beneath his leg, he placed both hands to his mouth and uttered a long shrill cry.

It acted like magic upon Black Boy, who recognised it directly as his master’s call, and having had his frolic, he trotted slowly towards where Bart cantered on, suffered himself to be caught, and the party returned in triumph, none the worse, save the tiring, for the adventure.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Silver Canyon.

A week’s arduous journey over a sterile stretch of country, where water was very scarce and where game was hard to approach, brought them at last in reach of what looked to be a curiously formed mountain far away in the middle of an apparently boundless plain. Then it struck Bart that it could not be a mountain, for its sides were perpendicular, and its top at a distance seemed to be perfectly flat, and long discussions arose between him and the Doctor as to the peculiarity of the strange eminence standing up so prominently right in the middle of the plain.

While they were discussing the subject, the Beaver and his English-speaking follower came to their side, and pointing to the mountain, gave them to understand that this was their destination.

“But is there silver there?” said the Doctor eagerly, when the Indian smiled and said quietly, “Wait and see.”

The mountain on being first seen appeared to be at quite a short distance, but at the end of their first day’s journey they seemed to have got no nearer, while after another day, though it had assumed more prominent proportions, they were still at some distance, and it was not until the third morning that the little party stood on the reedy shores of a long narrow winding lake, one end of which they had to skirt before they could ride up to the foot of the flat-topped mountain which looked as if it had been suddenly thrust by some wondrous volcanic action right from the plain to form what appeared to be a huge castle, some seven or eight hundred feet high, and with no ravine or rift in the wall by which it could be approached.

All Bart’s questions were met by the one sole answer from the Indian, “Wait and see;” and in this spirit the savages guided them along beneath the towering ramparts of the mountain, whose scarped sides even a mountain sheep could not have climbed, till towards evening rein was drawn close under the mighty rocks, fragments of which had fallen here and there, loosened by time or cut loose by the shafts of storms to lie crumbling about its feet.

There seemed to be no reason for halting there, save that there was a little spring of water trickling down from the rocks, while a short distance in front what seemed to be a wide crack appeared in the plain, zigzagging here and there, one end going off into the distance, the other appearing to pass round close by the mountain; and as soon as they were dismounted and the horses tethered, the Beaver signed to Bart and the Doctor to accompany him, while the interpreter followed close behind.

It was a glorious evening, and after the heat of the day, the soft, cool breeze that swept over the plain was refreshing in the extreme; but all the same Bart felt very hungry, and his thoughts were more upon some carefully picked sage grouse that Joses and Maude were roasting than upon the search for silver; but the Doctor was excited, for he felt that most likely this would prove to be the goal of their long journey. His great fear was that the Indians in their ignorance might have taken some white shining stone or mica for the precious metal.

The crack in the plain seemed to grow wider as they approached, but the Indians suddenly led them off to the right, close under the towering flank of the mountain, and between it and a mass of rock that might have been split from it at some early stage in the world’s life.

This mass was some forty or fifty feet high, and between it and the parent mountain there was a narrow rift, so narrow in fact that they had to proceed in single file for about a hundred yards, winding in and out till, reaching the end, the Indians stood upon a broad kind of shelf of rock in silence as the Doctor and Bart involuntarily uttered a cry of surprise.

For there was the crack in the plain below their feet, and they were standing upon its very verge where it came in close to the mountain, whose top was some seven hundred feet above their heads, while here its perpendicular side went down for fully another thousand to where, in the solemn dark depths of the vast canyon or crack in the rocky crust of the earth, a great rushing river ran, its roar rising to where they stood in a strangely weird monotone, like low echoing thunder.

The reflections in the evening sky lighted up the vast rift for a while, and Bart forgot his hunger in the contemplation of this strange freak of nature, of a river running below in a channel whose walls were perfectly perpendicular and against which in places the rapid stream seemed to beat and eddy and swirl, while in other parts there were long stretches of pebbly and rocky shore. For as far as Bart could judge, the walls seemed to be about four hundred feet apart, though in the fading evening light it was hard to tell anything for certain.

A more stupendous work of nature had never met Bart’s eye, and his first thoughts were natural enough— How should he manage to get to the top of that flat mountain?—How should he be able to lower himself down into the mysterious shades of that vast canyon, and wander amongst the wonders that must for certain be hidden there?

Just then the Beaver spoke. He had evidently been taking lessons from the interpreter, as, smiling loftily and half in pity at the eagerness of men who could care for such a trifle as white ore when they had horses and rifles, he pointed up at the perpendicular face of the mountain and then downward at the wall of the canyon, and said:—

“Silver—silver. Beaver give his brother. Medicine-man.”

“He means there is silver here, sir, and he gives it to you,” said Bart eagerly.

“Yes. Give. Silver,” said the chief, nodding his head, and holding out his hand, which the Doctor grasped, Bart doing the same by the other.

“I am very grateful,” said the Doctor at last, while his eyes kept wandering about, “but I see none.”

“Silver—silver,” said the chief again, as he looked up and then down, ending by addressing some words in the Indian dialect to the interpreter, who pointed in the direction of the camp.

“The Beaver-with-Sharp-Teeth says, let us eat,” he said.

This brought back Bart’s hunger so vividly to his recollection that he laughed merrily and turned to go.

“Yes,” he said, “let us eat by all means. Shall we come in the morning and examine this place, sir?”

“Yes, Bart, we will,” said the Doctor, as they turned back; “but I’m afraid we shall be disappointed. What was that?”

“An Indian,” said Bart. “I saw him glide amongst the rocks. Was it an enemy?”

“No; impossible, I should say,” replied the Doctor. “One of our own party. Our friends here would have seen him if he had been an enemy, long before we should.”

“And so you think there is no silver here, sir?” said Bart.

“I can’t tell yet, my boy. There may be, but these men know so little about such things that I cannot help feeling doubtful. However, we shall see, and if I am disappointed I shall know what to do.”

“Try again, sir?” said Bart.

“Try again, my boy, for there is ample store in the mountains if we can find it.”

“Yes,” he said, as they walked back, “this is going to be a disappointment.” He picked up a piece of rock as he went along between the rocks; “this stone does not look like silver-bearing stratum. But we’ll wait till the morning, Bart, and see.”

Chapter Fifteen.

Dangerous Neighbours.

Upon reaching the waggon it was to find Joses smiling and sniffing as he stood on the leeward side of the fire, so as to get the full benefit of the odour of the well-done sage grouse which looked juicy brown, and delicious enough to tempt the most ascetic of individuals, while Maude laughed merrily to see the eager glances Bart kept directing at the iron rod upon which the birds had been spitted and hung before the fire.

“Don’t you wish we had a nice new loaf or two, Bart?” she said, looking very serious, and as if disappointed that this was not the case.

“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart.

“I won’t,” said Maude, trying to appear serious. “It makes you look like a wolf, Bart.”

“And that’s just how I feel,” he cried—“horribly like one.”

Half an hour later he owned that he felt more like a reasonable being, for not only had he had a fair portion of the delicate sage grouse, but found to his delight that there was an ample supply of cakes freshly made and baked in the ashes while he had been with the Doctor exploring.

Bart took one turn round their little camp before lying down to sleep, and by the wonderfully dark, star-encrusted sky, the great flat-topped mountain looked curiously black, and as if it leaned over towards where they were encamped, and might at any moment topple down and crush them.

So strange was this appearance, and so thoroughly real, that it was a long time before Bart could satisfy himself that it was only the shadow that impressed him in so peculiar a way. Once he had been about to call the attention of the Doctor to the fact, but fortunately, as he thought, he refrained.

“He lay down directly,” said Bart to himself as he walked on, and then he stopped short, startled, for just before him in the solemn stillness of the great plain, and just outside the shadow cast by the mountain, he saw what appeared to be an enormously tall, dark figure coming towards him in perfect silence, and seeming as if it glided over the sandy earth.

Bart’s heart seemed to stand still. His mouth felt dry. His breath came thick and short. He could not run, for his feet appeared to be fixed to the ground, and all he felt able to do was to wait while the figure came nearer and nearer, through the transparent darkness, till it was close upon him, and said in a low voice that made the youth start from his lethargy, unchaining as it did his faculties, and giving him the power to move:

“Hallo, Bart! I thought you were asleep.”

“I thought you were, sir,” said Bart.

“Well, I’m going to lie down now, my boy, but I’ve been walking in a silver dream. Better get back.”

He said no more, but walked straight to the little camp, while, pondering upon the intent manner in which his guardian seemed to give himself up to this dream of discovering silver, Bart began to make a circuit of the camp, finding to his satisfaction that the Beaver had posted four men as sentinels, Joses telling his young leader afterwards when he lay down that the chief had refused to allow either of the white men to go on duty that night.

“You think he is to be trusted, don’t you, Joses?” asked Bart sleepily.

“Trusted? Oh yes, he’s to be trusted, my lad. Injuns are as bad as can be, but some of ’em’s got good pyntes, and this one, though he might have scalped the lot of us once upon a time, became our friend as soon as the Doctor cured his arm. And it was a cure too, for now it’s as strong and well as ever. I tell you what, Master Bart.”

No answer.

“I tell you what, Master Bart.”

No answer.

“I say, young one, are you asleep?”

No reply.

“Well, he has dropped off sudden,” growled Joses. “I suppose I must tell him what another time.”

Having made up his mind to this, the sturdy fellow gave himself a bit of a twist in his blanket, laid his head upon his arm, and in a few seconds was as fast asleep as Bart.

The latter slept soundly all but once in the night, when it seemed to him that he had heard a strange, wild cry, and, starting up on his elbow, he listened attentively for some moments, but the cry was not repeated, and feeling that it must have been in his dreams that he had heard the sound, he lay down again and slept till dawn, when he sprang up, left every one asleep, and stole off, rifle in hand, to see if he could get a shot at a deer anywhere about the mountain, and also to have a look down into the tremendous canyon about whose depths and whose rushing stream he seemed to have been dreaming all the night.

He recollected well enough the way they had gone on the previous evening, and as he stepped swiftly forward, there, at the bottom of the narrow rift between the mass of fallen rock and the mountain, was the pale lemon-tinted horizon, with a few streaks above it flecking the early morning sky and telling of the coming day.

“The canyon will look glorious when the sun is up,” said Bart to himself; “but I don’t see any game about, and—oh!—”

Click—click—click—click went the locks of his double rifle as he came suddenly upon a sight which seemed to freeze his blood, forcing him to stand still and gaze wildly upon what was before him.

Then the thought of self-preservation stepped in, and as if from the lessons taught of the Indians, he sprang to shelter, sheltering himself behind a block of stone, his rifle ready, and covering every spot in turn that seemed likely to contain the cruel enemy that had done this deed.

For there before him—but flat upon his back, his arms outstretched, his long lance beneath him—lay one of the friendly Indians, while his companion lay half raised upon his side, as if he had dragged himself a short distance so as to recline with his head upon a piece of rock. His spear was across his legs, and it was very evident that he had been like this for some time after receiving his death wound.

For both were dead, the morning light plainly showing that in their hideous glassy eyes, without the terrible witness of the pool of blood that had trickled from their gaping wounds.

Bart shuddered and felt as if a hand of ice were grasping his heart. Then a fierce feeling of rage came over him, and his eyes flashed as he looked round for the treacherous enemies who had done this deed.

He looked in vain, and at last he stole cautiously out of his lurking-place; then forgot his caution, and ran to where the Indians lay, forgetting, in his eagerness to help them, the horrors of the scene.

But he could do nothing, for as he laid his hand upon the breast of each in turn, it was to find that their hearts had ceased to beat, and they were already cold.

Racing back to the camp, he spread his news, and the Beaver and his little following ran off to see for themselves the truth of his story, after which they mounted, and started to find the trail of the treacherous murderers of their companions, while during their absence the Doctor examined the two slaughtered Indians, and gave it as his opinion that they had both been treacherously stabbed from behind.

It was past mid-day before the Beaver returned to announce that there had only been two Indians lurking about their camp.

“And did you overtake them?” said Bart.

The chief smiled in a curious, grim way, and pointed to a couple of scalps that hung at the belts of two of his warriors.

“They were on foot. We were mounted,” he said quietly. “They deserved to die. We had not injured them, or stolen their wives or horses. They deserved to die.”

This was unanswerable, and no one spoke, the Indians going off to bury their dead companions, which they did simply by finding a suitable crevice in the depths of the ravine near which they had been slain, laying them in side by side, with their medicine-bags hung from their necks, their weapons ready to their hands, and their buffalo robes about them, all ready for their use in the happy hunting-grounds.

This done they were covered first with bushes, and then with stones, and the Indians returned to camp.

Chapter Sixteen.

In Nature’s Storehouse.

All this seemed to add terribly to the sense of insecurity felt by the Doctor, and Joses was not slow to speak out.

“We may have a mob of horse-Injun down upon us at any moment,” he growled. “I don’t think we’re very safe.”

“Joses is right,” said the Doctor; “we must see if there is a rich deposit of silver here, and then, if all seems well, we must return, and get together a force of recruits so as to be strong enough to resist the Indians, should they be so ill advised as to attack us, and ready to work the mines.”

“’Aven’t seen no mines yet,” growled Joses.

The Doctor coughed with a look of vexation upon his countenance, and, beckoning to the chief, he took his rifle. Bart rose, and leaving Joses in charge of the camp, they started for the edge of the canyon.

There was no likelihood of enemies being about the place after the event of the morning; but to the little party every shrub and bush, every stone, seemed to suggest a lurking-place for a treacherous enemy. Still they pressed on, the chief taking them, for some unknown reason, in the opposite route along beneath the perpendicular walls of the mountain, which here ran straight up from the plain.

They went by a rugged patch of broken rock, and by what seemed to be a great post stuck up there by human hands, but which proved, on a nearer approach, to be the remains of a moderate-sized tree that had been struck by lightning, the whole of the upper portion having been charred away, leaving only some ten feet standing up out of the ground.

A short distance farther on, as they were close in by the steep wall of rock, they came to a slight projection, as if a huge piece had slipped down from above, and turning sharply round this, the Beaver pointed to a narrow rift just wide enough to allow of the passage of one man at a time.

He signed to the Doctor to enter, and climbing over a few rough stones, the latter passed in and out of sight.

“Bart! quick, my boy! quick!” he said directly after, and the lad sprang in to help him, as he thought, in some perilous adventure, but only to stop short and stare at the long sloping narrow passage fringed with prickly cactus plants, which slope ran evidently up the side of the mountain.

“Why, it’s the way up to the top,” cried Bart. “I wonder who made it.”

“Dame Nature, I should say, my boy,” said the Doctor. “We must explore this. Why, what a natural fortification! One man could hold this passage against hundreds.”

Just then the chief appeared below them, for they had climbed up a few yards, and signed to them to come down.

The Doctor hesitated, and then descended.

“Let’s see what he has to show, Bart. I have seen no silver yet.”

They followed the Beaver down, and he led them straight back, past the camp, through the narrow ravine, once more to the shelf of rock overlooking the canyon, and now, in the full glow of the sunny afternoon, they were able to realise the grandeur of the scene where the river ran swiftly down below, fully a thousand feet, in a bed of its own, shut out from the upper world by the perpendicular walls of rock.

At the first glance it seemed that it would be impossible to descend, but on farther examination there seemed in places to be rifts and crevices and shelves, dotted with trees and plants of the richest growth, where it might be likely that skilful climbers could make a way down.

From where they stood the river looked enchanting, for while all up in the plain was arid and grey, and the trees and shrubs that grew there seemed parched and dry, and of a sickly green, all below was of the richest verdant hues, and lovely groves of woodland were interspersed with soft patches of waving grass that flourished where stormy winds never reached, and moisture and heat were abundant.

Still this paradise-like river was not without signs of trouble visiting it at times, and these remained in huge up-torn trees, dead branches, and jagged rocks, splintered and riven, that dotted the patches of plain from the shores of the river to the perpendicular walls of the canyon.

Bart needed no telling that these were the traces of floods, when, instead of the bright silver rushing river, the waters came down from the mountains hundreds of miles to the north, and the great canyon was filled to its walls with a huge seething yellow flow, and in imagination he thought of what the smiling emerald valley would be after such a visitation.

But he had little time for thought, the chief making signs to the Doctor to follow him, first laying down his rifle and signing to the Doctor to do the same.

Dr Lascelles hesitated for a moment, and then did as the chief wished, when the Beaver went on for a few yards to where the shelf of rock seemed to end, and there was nothing but a sheer fall of a thousand feet down to the stones and herbage at the bottom of the canyon, while above towered up the mountain which seemed like a Titanic bastion round which the river curved.

Without a moment’s hesitation the chief turned his face to them, lowered himself over the edge of the shelf down and down till only his hands remained visible. Then he drew himself up till his face was above the rock, and made a sign to the Doctor to come on.

“I dare not go, Bart,” said the Doctor, whose face was covered with dew. “Would you be afraid to follow him, my boy?”

“I should be afraid, sir,” replied Bart laying down his rifle, “but I’ll go.”

“No, no, I will not be such a coward,” cried the Doctor; and going boldly to the edge, he refrained from looking over, but turned and lowered himself down, passing out of Bart’s sight; and when the latter crept to the edge and looked down, he could see a narrow ledge below with climbing plants and luxuriant shrubs, but no sight of the Doctor or his guide.

Bart remained motionless—horror-stricken as the thought came upon him that they might have slipped and gone headlong into the chasm below; but on glancing back he saw one of the Indians who was of the party smiling, and evidently quite satisfied that nothing was wrong.

This being so, Bart remained gazing down into the canyon, listening intently, and wondering whither the pair could have gone.

It was a most wonderful sight to look down at that lovely silver river that flashed and sparkled and danced in the sunshine. In places where there were deep, calm pools it looked intensely blue, as it reflected the pure sky, while other portions seemed one gorgeous, dazzling damascene of molten metal, upon which Bart could hardly gaze.

Then there was the wonderful variety of the tints that adorned the shrubs and creepers that were growing luxuriantly wherever they could obtain a hold.

There were moments when Bart fancied that he could see the salmon plash in the river, but he could make out the birds in the depths below as they floated and skimmed about from shore to shore, and over the tops of the trees that looked like shrubs from where he crouched.

Just then, as he was forgetting the absence of the Doctor in an intense desire to explore the wonders of the canyon, to shoot in the patches of forest, to fish in the river, and find he knew not what in those wondrous solitudes where man had probably never yet trod, he heard a call, and, brought back to himself from his visionary expedition, he shouted a reply.

“The Beaver’s coming to you, Bart. Lower yourself down, my boy, and come.”