as much alone. Bill came and went on
many a secret, stealthy errand to where he knew the largest, most
toothsome mountain trout had their home. Busy with his own thoughts,
Job lay and dreamed the long hours away.

"Make Bill feel bad. Want hear it? Ugh! Me tell it; me there. No
brave; little boy. Bad day, bad day!"

It was the fourth day and Job was trying to persuade Bill to tell him
about the dreadful massacre of the Yosemite in the years gone by. The
fitful firelight played about the solemn face which showed never a
quiver as that night Bill told the story which made Job's blood run
cold.

[Illustration: Sentinel Rock.]

It was in the long-gone years when the miners first came into the
mountains. Living quietly in the beautiful valley to which they had
given their name, his tribe dwelt. Wild children of nature, they had
for many a century had the freedom of those hills. Far and wide on
many a hunting expedition they had roamed, and none had said nay. But
the pale-face, the greedy pale-face, came and stole the forests and
creeks yonder. Twice, enraged at their depredations, the Indians had
sallied forth from their homes and rent the hills about Gold City with
their war-cries, then retreated to the mountain fastnesses of which
the pale-face knew nothing. Once more they had gone on the war-path,
and started back, to find the whites at their heels. To the very edge
of the cliffs they had been followed, and their refuge was no longer a
secret--the world had heard the story of the giant's chasm in the
Sierras.

When they had gone up on the great meadows back of Yosemite Falls and
El Capitan to live, there came a great temptation. The Mono Lake
Indians, far over the pass, had stolen a lot of fine horses from the
miners of Nevada. They hated the Mono Lake Indians. They watched their
chance, and, while they were off on a great hunting trip, the
Yosemites stole over the crest of the Sierras and brought a hundred
head of horses back with them. Then the aged Indian went on without a
tremor. He told how, one summer day, he was playing with the other
boys around a great tree, when he heard the wild war-whoop of the
Monos; he saw them coming in their war-paint, mounted on mad, rushing
horses; heard the whirr of arrows about him; ran and hid in a cleft of
the great rocky cliff, out of sight but not of seeing; saw his mother
scalped and thrust back into the burning tepee and his father pushed
headlong over the cliff; heard the