k that horses were galloping
there.

They could not be. They were not, for they were on the other side of
the gulch now, higher still.

"It's the heat," said Chris with a sigh. "I'm giddy, I suppose."

"Hist!"

The warning word came from his father, and a thrill of excitement ran
through the boy as he felt that it was no fancy but the echoing of
galloping horses to which he was listening, while the next minute as the
reverberation grew louder, a spasm, half joy, half fear, ran through him
as, like a flash, the familiar figure of the American glanced in the
sunshine, disappeared in the shade, and came into sight again, with head
down, fists doubled and held close to his breast, as he came running
rapidly along the bottom of the gulch.

The next minute he had reached the narrow chasm above which Chris and
his friends lay waiting, disappeared, and the inclination that nearly
carried Chris away was to spring up, shout words of encouragement, and
then clamber to where he could follow the swift runner with his eyes
till he went out of sight at some turn of the gulch on his way to the
valley.

But the orders were to lie close till the whistle rang out, and like the
rest, who were influenced by the same feeling, Chris crouched lower to
gaze right away in the old direction, listening with straining nerves to
the ever-nearing echoing beat of horses' hoofs, till about a couple of
hundred yards away a mounted Indian, bow and arrow in one hand, rein in
the other, bounded into sight, urging on his pony with voice and hand.

"Will he know that it is a trap?" thought Chris, and he fully expected
to see the man draw rein, send an arrow amongst the hiding party, and
gallop off. But even as the thought ran through the lad's brain the
savage reached the narrow gap and dashed through.

By this time two more were close behind, a party of four some fifty
yards in the rear, all galloping hard, eager to overtake the fugitive,
while as they passed through at full gallop the echoes of the hoofs
increased, for a mob of about thirty came into sight, all tearing along
as in a race, and passed through the gap. "Right into the trap!"
thought Chris, whose pulses literally bounded with the excitement of the
scene that had passed beneath his feet.

"We've got them!" he panted. "Now, father, the stones!"

But it was beneath his breath that the words came, and his face flushed
and his eyes dilated, for as the echoing of the horses' hoofs b