e spot once he got
sight of the ascending cloud. He was their meat; they possessed their
souls in patience and settled down to await his home-coming.

Afternoon was waning and the first long shadows of early evening were
beginning to steal across the plain from the base of the mountains
when Uncle Billy rode his jaded pony down the faint wagon-track toward
the ranch-house. He was weary from the saddle, for he had come a long
distance that day--so long a distance that the horse was unfit for
much more travel.

He passed his first rude fence and was within two hundred yards or so
of the cabin when something made him pull up. He did not know what
that something was; but the bronco added to his suspicions by its
behavior. And then, while he was reconnoitering, an over-eager brave
took a pot-shot at him.

The bullet missed, as most Apache bullets had a habit of doing. Next
to the courage of the old-timers the utter inability of the North
American Indian to grasp the necessity of pulling down his front sight
was perhaps the largest factor that helped the white man to win the
country west of the Mississippi River. Uncle Billy Rhodes whirled his
pony and started back in the direction he had come from.

But the ponies of the Apaches were fresh from the rest they had
enjoyed while their masters were prolonging the death agonies of Uncle
Billy's partner. It took but a short time for the Indians to catch
them up and within a minute or two something like fifty warriors,
turbaned, naked from the waist up, were crowding their frenzied mounts
in the wake of the fugitive.

The chase, as might have been expected, was a short one. Before he had
gone a half-mile Uncle Billy saw that he was going to be overtaken.
Already the savages were spreading out, and he could hear the yells of
those who were drawing up on each side.

It was the proper time for a man to despair; but Uncle Billy was too
busy looking about him for a point of vantage to indulge in any such
emotion as that. He had an old-fashioned cap-and-ball revolver, all of
whose chambers were loaded; and it was his intention to make those six
bullets if possible account for six Apaches before he resigned himself
to unkind fate.

The river-bed was close at hand; in places the road skirted the willow
thickets which lined the stream. Before the fugitive a particularly
thick clump of the green shrubs showed; all about it the ground was
open. Uncle Billy hardly bothered to check hi