stealthy
and quiet that he could hardly believe he heard.

He did not dare to move, but peered through the branches of the bush
beside him and saw a strange cavalcade passing on the high bank above,
little brown and buckskin and piebald Indian ponies, their unshod
hoofs stepping lightly and quietly over the dry grass, each with a
painted, red-skinned rider, armed and decorated with all of an
Indian's trappings of war. The feathered war bonnets that crowned
their heads and reached to their heels were of every gay color, their
fierce faces were daubed with red and ocher, they carried, some of
them, guns, more of them rude lances and bows and arrows. Felix was so
near that he could make out the strings of beads and claws of wild
animals about their necks, could see their red skins glisten, and
could watch the muscles of their slim thighs move and ripple as they
guided their wise little horses more by pressure of the knee than by
use of the rude Indian bridles. Not one of them spoke, once a pony
snorted in the dust, but that was the only sound as they moved past
him and turned into the trail with their faces eastward. The whole
procession might have been a vision--a mirage of the high, hot
noontide and of the boy's tired brain. But after the men were gone and
he had crawled out from his hiding place he could see the horses'
footprints in the dust and could assure himself that they were real.

After a long time he heard shots, very faint and far away, lasting for
an hour or more before the hush of the prairie fell again. The cool
night came at last, and the little mare, visibly strengthened by the
rest and grazing, came trotting to him, splashing happily through the
water of the pool. Those gray enemies of the night before did not come
near, nor, though he waited two days, watchful and alert, did any of
the Indians return. He thought of that band of men he had talked with,
hard, seasoned, and well armed for the struggle. From the very first
he had felt little doubt as to what the issue of such a battle would
be.

It seems too long to tell of how Felix mounted the mare at last and
cantered away along the trail, rejoicing in swift motion again after
the long wait and the crawling pace of the ox team. Nor can it be
fully told how he and his friends toiled forward across the plain,
over that dreaded stretch of desert that came at the far edge of it,
up the tempest-swept, snow-covered mountains, until that wondrous
minute wh