did that he had only to draw back a few
yards for the great elbow-like rock to cover his retreat so that he
could hurry away with the warning of danger and give all time to seek
the cells that they were to defend.

"They ought to have loaded up by now," he said to himself, "and all has
turned out splendidly, while perhaps after all the Indians may never
find this deep, dark gulch. It was only by accident that we did."

Chris had just comforted himself with this notion when a horrible
thought assailed him. It was this--

All the way he came he had been keeping up a good lookout in front for
the approaching danger, and had never once thought of looking up to
right or left for some narrow side valley or gash by which the danger
might suddenly descend into the narrow way.

The thought was so terrible that he turned cold and looked back,
half-expecting to see a group of the bronze warriors in his rear; and
then his too busy imagination pictured more, the whole band in fact
riding down by the gash in the rocks that he ought to have seen, and
stealthily coming on to surprise those whom it had been his duty to
save.

For some minutes his fancy gained ground to such an extent that the boy
was completely unnerved. And no wonder, for the gloom of the great
gulch with its perpendicular sides towering up to a vast height, the
solitary grandeur, the silence, and the oppression wrought by the
tremendous nature of his task, began to be more than his young nature
could bear.

For some little time he sank into a state of despair. To use his own
words, in which he thought of his brain power as something mechanical
that had been wound up, his head seemed as if it would not "go."

In fact, to use a homely phrase, he was so prostrated by the thought
that, in spite of his care and the stern duties of the task that he had
been set to do, he had passed some side opening by which the Indians
might come down and attack the unarmed camp, that he wanted "shaking up"
to bring him to himself.

He had that very shaking up literally, for all at once his pony
stretched out its neck, spread its legs widely, and gave itself a
violent shake, one which threatened to dislodge the saddle before the
beast subsided, and Chris settled himself again in his seat.

"It's all fancy," he said to himself; "I must have seen such a gorge or
ravine if there had been one. The Indians must come along here in
front. Mounted men can't ride down precipitous