slopes."

With this thought to comfort him the boy sat watching the open part in
front from his cover, perfectly satisfied that the only portions of him
visible to a coming enemy were his face and hat, while to add to his
protection, in case any of the Indians' advance-guard should suddenly
ride into sight, Chris dismounted, cut a few tufts of heather-like
brush, and stuck them at random through the band of his soft felt
covering.

"There," he said in a satisfied way, as he replaced his hat, "that will
look at a distance as if it were growing. I've a good mind to rub my
face with mud."

Whether he would have so disfigured himself is doubtful, but certainly
he could not, for there was no mud, nothing but a little beautifully
clean sand in the bottom of the rock-pool into which the falling water
splashed.

So Chris sat there thinking and straining his eyes along the narrow
gulch, seeing no Indians, but the bright light on the tops of the rocky
sides, while the gulch itself, always gloomy, now began to darken as if
it were being gradually filled up with a flood of black velvet in a
liquid state.

The pony dropped its head more and more; not to browse, for the bit held
him a prisoner from that, but because it was an easy position, and in
the silence Chris listened to the heavy breathing of the animal and felt
the action of its sides as they rose and sank.

"They ought to have got all the stores into the cells by this time,"
thought Chris. "I wish I could have helped. It seems so lazy just
sitting here. But of course it makes them feel safer. But what a
horrible nuisance it is for Indians to be coming to disturb us. I hope
it won't come to a fight. How horrible to have to shoot them!--Much
more horrible for them to shoot us."

Chris's thoughts became less active, and then concentrated themselves
upon the extremity of his eye scope, where he believed that he saw a
mounted man standing where there was nothing before.

"Pooh! Only a rock," muttered the boy, after a long and careful
inspection. "But how fast it's getting dark. I shan't be able to see
any enemy soon, and what am I to do then, for I shan't be able to see
anything at all? Why, nothing was said about that," he thought, "not a
word. I didn't think about being in such a position, and I'm sure
father didn't, or he would have spoken. Now, what would he say to me, I
wonder? Something about using my own discretion and acting for the
best. Now, wh