sed, therefore, when we had come well out upon the
promontory, that no sentinel challenged us; but our surprise vanished a
moment or two later as we perceived one of our men curled up comfortably
against a sunny rook and apparently sound asleep. However, as we got
close to the man it was clear to us that his sleep was one that he never
would waken from, for a pool of blood stained the rock beside him, and
an arrow was shot fairly through his heart. We made but a short stop
beside this fellow--who plainly had been shot in his sleep, and so
deserved the fate that had overtaken him--and then went forward
anxiously that we might see how the other sentinels stationed hereabouts
had fared. The result of our quest was as bad as it could be; for in one
place or another among the rocks we found all five of the men who had
been posted upon the promontory, and all of them were dead. Three more
of them certainly had been shot while asleep or wholly off their guard,
as was shown by the easy attitudes in which we found them sitting or
lying among the rocks. The fifth had not been instantly killed; as we
inferred from finding a broken arrow sticking in his left arm, and some
signs of a struggle about where he lay, and a great split in his skull,
as from a sword stroke, that finally had let the life out of him. It
struck us as strange that this man had not aroused the camp with his
shouts; but his post was at the extreme end of the promontory, so that
he must have called very loudly in order to be heard; and it was
possible that in the suddenness of his danger he never thought to call
at all. However, the important matter, so far as we were concerned, was
that these five sentinels had been slain close beside the town and in
broad daylight, and that but for the chance of our coming out upon the
promontory the most important of our outposts would have remained
unguarded until the night relief should have come on. It was Rayburn's
theory that the plan of the enemy was to place his own men on the vacant
posts--trusting to the reasonable certainty that in the dusk of evening
one naked Indian would look much like another--and so despatch the
relief, one by one, as the guard was changed.

Of those of the enemy who had accomplished this piece of work so
skilfully we could see no sign--unless it were a boat that we dimly saw
a long way off on the lake, and that presently wholly disappeared in a
bank of haze; and despite the hot sunshine basking