full, never shone
more brightly, and it seemed that countless new stars had arrived that
very night. He sighed. They might as well have been riding in broad
daylight.

Toward midnight the swells and dips of the plain became accentuated, and
they lost sight of the pursuing Lipans. But there was yet no forest to
hide them, only the miserable mesquite and the ragged yucca. Save for
them the plain stretched away as bare and brown as ever. Two hours more
with the Lipans still lost to view, Obed called a halt.

"The Lipans will pick up our trail in the morning," he said. "Though
lost to sight we are to their memory dear, and they will hang on. But
our horses are faster than theirs, and as they cannot come near us on
this bare plain, without being seen we can get away. Whereas, I say, and
hence and therefore we might as well rest and let our good steeds rest,
too."

"What time would you say it is?"

"About two o' the morning by the watch that I haven't got, and it will
be four or five hours until day. Ned, if I were you I'd lie down between
blankets. You can relax more comfortably and rest better that way."

Ned did not wish to do it, but Obed insisted so strongly, and was so
persuasive that he acceded at last. They had chosen a place on a swell
where they could see anything that approached a quarter of a mile away,
and Obed stood near the recumbent boy, holding the bridles of the two
horses in one hand and his rifle in the other.

The man's eyes continually traveled around the circle of the horizon,
but now and then he glanced at the boy. Ned, brave, enduring and
complaining so little, had taken a great hold upon his affection. They
were comrades, tried by many dangers, and no danger yet to come could
induce him to desert the boy.

The moon and stars were still very bright, and Obed, as his eyes
traveled the circle of the horizon, saw no sign of the Indian approach.
But that the Lipans would come with the dawn, or some time afterward, he
did not have the slightest doubt. He glanced once more at Ned and then
he smiled. The boy, while never meaning it, was sleeping soundly, and
Obed was very glad. This was what he intended, relying upon Ned's utter
exhaustion of body and mind.

All through the remaining hours of the night the man, with the bridles
of the two horses in one hand and the rifle in the other, kept watch.
Now and then he walked in a circle around and around the sleeping boy,
and once or twice he smiled to h