had time to take one bite at the blanket and
fill his teeth full of wool before I'd squeezed him flat. I weigh nigh
upon twelve stone, horseman's weight, and that would have taken all the
music out of his tail if he'd been there. But don't you make any
mistake about those gentlemen; they've an ugly way of biting if they're
obliged, but from what I know, the first thing a rattler does when he
hears feet coming is to take himself away somewhere so that no one shall
tread on his music."

It was then that Chris annoyed his companion by relating the night
alarm, though Ned was ready enough to join in the laugh against himself.

"Say," said Griggs suddenly, as they passed a clump of trees standing
like an island upon a little elevation above the monotonous plain which
had succeeded the oasis where the fruit-farm lay in the solitude, and he
pointed off to his left.

"Say what? Can you see anything?" asked Chris.

"Yes; ain't that the hill we've got to make 'smorning?"

"Yes; of course," cried Chris, shading his eyes from the level sunbeams.

"Then we're leaving it too much to the left."

The opinion was endorsed before anything had been done, by an order from
their leader, who had been using his glass, and now shouted from the
rear that they should bear off to the left and then make straight for
the elevation dimly-seen like a low cloud in their front.

"Our boss is going to keep us all up to the mark, and no mistake," said
Griggs, "only I hope he's going to play fair with us."

"Why, of course he will," cried Chris indignantly.

"I don't know," said the American, with a curious smile about the
corners of his lips and a twinkle in his eye. "I don't think he was
quite square in the night."

"Why not?"

"Well, you see, he had to rouse me up to relieve him about midnight,
when I was in such a beautiful sleep that it was a sin to break it, and
what does he do but snap it in two about an hour before he ought."

"I don't believe he would," cried Chris.

"No, you don't, because he's your father. He ain't my father, and so I
believe he did."

"But did you look at your watch?"

"Nay, but I felt as if his must have been an hour too fast if he looked
at it and found it twelve o'clock. Say, we might as well let watches
take their chance now, and trust to the sun. He don't want any winding
up, and we shall have plenty to do without seeing to keys and that sort
of thing."

"I shall keep mine wound up," said Chris