two men to travel by day in that country, whether fresh
sign had been seen or not. But, anxious to reach a hiding place where
both might venture to sleep through the day, they pressed on up the
trail. And they paid dearly the penalty of their foolhardiness.

Other riders were out that morning, riders with eyes keen as a hawk's,
eyes that never rested for a moment, eyes set in heads cunning as foxes
and cruel as wolves. A war party of Comanches was out and on the move
early, and, as is the crafty Indian custom, was riding out of sight in
the narrow valley below the well-rounded hills that lined the river.
But while hid themselves, their scouts were out far ahead, creeping
along just beneath the edge of the Plain, scanning keenly its broad
stretches, alert for quarry. And they soon found it.

Loving and Jim hove in sight!

To be sure they were only two specks in the distance, but the trained
eyes of these savage sleuths quickly made them out as horsemen, and
white men.

Halting for the main war party to come up, they held a brief council of
war, which decided that the attack should be delivered two or three
miles farther up the river, where the trail swerved in to within a few
hundred yards of the stream. So the scouts mounted, and the war party
jogged leisurely northward and took stand opposite the bend in the
trail.

On came Loving and Jim, unwarned and unsuspecting, their animals jaded
from the long night's ride. They reached the bend. And just as Jim,
pointing to a low round hill a quarter of a mile to the west of them,
remarked, "Thar'd be a blame good place to stan' off a bunch o'
Injuns," they were startled by the sound of thundering hoofs off on
their right to the east. Looking quickly round they saw a sight to
make the bravest tremble.

Racing up out of the valley and out upon them, barely four hundred
yards away, came a band of forty or fifty Comanche warriors, crouching
low on their horses' withers, madly plying quirt and heel to urge their
mounts to their utmost speed.

Their own animals worn out, escape by running was hopeless. Cover must
be sought where a stand could be made, so they whirled about and
spurred away for the hill Jim had noted. Their pace was slow at the
best. The Indians were gaining at every jump and had opened fire, and
before half the distance to the hill was covered a ball broke Loving's
thigh and killed his mule. As the mule pitched over dead,
providentially he fell o