ave
up only when his vigor collapsed.

His surrender was complete. He lay weak and panting, bleeding from
reopened wounds, for the time as helpless and submissive as a child.

From a canteen they gave him water. Afterward they washed and tied up the
wounds, bathed the fevered face, and kept the mosquitoes from him by
fanning them away.

"Expect I'd better take a pasear an' see where Mr. Ute's at," Dud said.
"He's liable to drap in onexpected while we're not lookin'--several of
him, huntin' for souvenirs in the scalp line for to decorate his belt
with."

From the little opening he crept into the thicket of saplings and
disappeared. Bob waited beside the delirious man. His nerves were keyed
to a high tension. For all he knew the beadlike eyes of four or five
sharpshooters might be peering at him from the jungle.

The sound of a shot startled him. It came from the direction in which Dud
had gone. Had he been killed? Or wounded? Bob could not remain longer
where he was. He too crept into the willows, following as well as he
could the path of Hollister.

There came to him presently the faint crackle of twigs. Some one or
something was moving in the bosk. He lay still, heart thumping violently.
The sound ceased, began again.

Bob's trembling hand held a revolver pointed in the direction of the
snapping branches. The willows moved, opened up, and a blond, curly head
appeared.

Bob's breath was expelled in a long sigh of relief. "Wow! I'm glad to see
you. Heard that shot an' thought maybe they'd got you."

"Not so you can notice it," Dud replied cheerfully. "But they're all
round us. I took a crack at one inquisitive buck who had notions of
collectin' me. He ce'tainly hit the dust sudden as he vamosed."

"What'll we do?"

"I found a kinda buffalo wallow in the willows. We'll move in on a lease
an' sit tight till Harshaw an' the boys show up."

They carried and dragged Houck through the thicket to the saucer-shaped
opening Hollister had discovered. The edges of this rose somewhat above
the surrounding ground. Using their spurs to dig with, the cowpunchers
deepened the hollow and packed the loose dirt around the rim in order to
heighten the rampart.

From a distance came the sound of heavy, rapid firing, of far, faint
yells.

"The boys are attackin' the gulch," Dud guessed. "Sounds like they might
be makin' a clean-up too."

It was three o'clock by Bob's big silver watch. Heat waves were
shimmering in the hol