Choose now between me and my
unchanged opinion, and some new train captain."

"Oh, every man makes some bad guesses, Jondo. We'll keep you, of course,
and it's a joke on you, that's all." So ran the comment, and we
hurriedly broke camp and moved on.

But with all of our captain's anxiety Pawnee Rock stood like a
protecting shield above us when we camped at its base, and the long
bright days that followed were full of a sense of security and good
cheer as we pulled away for the Cimarron crossing of the Arkansas River,
miles ahead.

All day Jondo rode wide of the trail, sometimes on one side and
sometimes on the other, watching for signs of an enemy. And the bluff,
jovial crowd of bull-whackers laughed together at his holding on to his
opinion out of sheer stubbornness.

On the second night he asked for a triple guard and nobody grumbled, for
everybody really liked the big plainsman and they could afford to be
good-natured with him, now that he was unquestioningly in the wrong.

The camp was in a little draw running down to the river, bordered by a
mere ripple of ground on either side, growing deeper as it neared the
stream and flattening out toward the level prairie in its upper
portion. In spite of the triple guard, Jondo did not sleep that night;
and, strangely enough, I, who had been dull to fear in the hands of the
Indians two nights before, felt nervous and anxious, now when all seemed
secure.

Just at daybreak a light shower with big bullet-like drops of rain
pattered down noisily on our camp and a sudden flash of lightning and a
thunderbolt startled the sleepy stock and brought us to our feet, dazed
for an instant. Another light volley of rain, another sheet of lightning
and roar of thunder, and the cloud was gone, scattering down the
Arkansas Valley. But in that flash all of Jondo's cause for anxiety was
justified. The widening draw was full of Kiowas, hideous in war-paint,
and the ridges on either side of us were swarming with Indians beating
dried skins to frighten and stampede our stock, and all yelling like
fiends, while a perfect rain of arrows swept our camp. With the river
below us full of holes and quicksands, our enemies had only to hold the
natural defense on either side while they drove us in a harrowing wedge
back to the water. If our ponies and mules should break from the corral
they would rush for the river or be lost in the widening space back from
the deeper draw, where a well-trained corps