r himself. The
mustang needed rest and refreshment, and the rider required them
scarcely less.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TWO SCOUTS.

The hunter was within a hundred yards or so of the clump of trees, when
he suddenly checked his mustang, or rather the mustang checked himself,
at the light of a camp fire, which all at once flashed out from among
them.

"That's either Dick or a lot of varmints," he muttered. "I think it's
varmints, for I don't b'lieve he meant to wait there."

However, it was a question easily settled. He slid from his horse, and,
rifle in hand, stole forward in the direction of the grove, moving as
silently and stealthily as a shadow, while his beast stood as if he were
an equestrian statue awaiting the placing of some metallic hero upon his
back. A phantom itself could not have glided forward with less noise
than did he, and yet he was fully twenty yards away from his
destination, with his eyes fixed upon the point of light, when he was
discovered by some horse that belonged to the stranger, or strangers,
which gave out a loud neigh, as a signal to his friends of the approach
of danger. At that moment, Tom dropped flat upon his face, as he had
done before at the approach of the Apaches, and the luxuriant grass
gathered about his form in such a way that he could not be seen by
anyone at a moderate distance. But close upon the heels of the neigh
came a low, tremulous whistle, scarcely uttered when Tom replied in a
precisely similar way, leaped to his feet and trotted toward the grove.

"That's Dick!" he exclaimed to himself, the signals which they had used
being the same that they had adopted years before, when approaching each
other in a dangerous neighborhood.

The next minute the two met and shook hands. There were many points of
resemblance and difference between the two comrades. Each was in middle
life, embrowned, hardened, and toughened by years of exposure and the
wild life of the border; but Tom Hardynge was taller, more sinewy and
active than Dick Morris, who was below the medium stature, with a
stunted appearance; but he was a powerful man, wonderfully skillful in
the use of the rifle, and the two friends together made the strongest
possible kind of a team.

"Ah! that's the talk," exclaimed Tom, as he snuffed the odor of the
cooking meat by the camp fire. "I'm hungry enough to chaw up my
moccasins. What have you there--buffalo, mule or grizzly bar?"

"Neither one," replied the othe