tick to the wagon, Uncle Joe. We ain't
looking for any rush before daylight. If one comes Hank and I will get
here quick. Where is Miss Cooper?"

"In th' wagon, of course!"

"That's no place for her," retorted Tom. "Those sheets won't stop
arrows. Put her under the wagon, an' hang blankets down th' sides, loose
at th' bottoms. Tight blankets or canvas are little better than paper;
but a loose Mackinaw yields to th' impact somewhat. I've seen a loose
blanket stop a musket ball."

"Can I do anything useful, Mr. Boyd?" came Patience's voice from the
wagon. "I can load and cap, anyhow."

Tom's chuckle came straight from his heart. "Not yet, God bless you.
Despite their reputation in some quarters, Pawnees are not the most
daring fighters. Any of the tribes east of the Mississippi are paragons
of courage when compared to these prairie Indians. Pawnees would rather
steal than fight; and they know that this is no helpless caravan, but
one with nearly two hundred armed men. If they were Comanches or Kiowas,
Utes or Apaches, I'd be bothered a lot more than I am now. And they know
that there are two cannons pointing somewhere into the night. All we
have to worry about is our animals."

The mournful, hair-raising screech of an owl sounded again, and then all
the demons of hell seemed to have broken loose around the camp. The
corralled animals, restless before, now surged one way and now another,
largely cancelling their own efforts because wave met wave; but all the
while they were getting wilder and more frantic and the blood-chilling
yells on all sides finally set them into a sort of rhythm which more and
more became uniform. They surged from one side to the other, striking
the wagons harder and harder. Then the yelling ceased and the Pawnee
whistle was heard. There ensued a few minutes of silence and then the
whistle sounded again. It set off a hellish uproar on one side of the
encampment and the frantic animals whirled and charged in the other
direction. The shock rocked some of the wagons and would have overturned
them but for the great weight of their loads. Anticipating this surge of
the animals some of the traders, told off by the captain, had bound
bundles of twigs and dried grass to long cottonwood sticks and now set
them afire and crawled under the wagons, thrusting the torches into the
faces of the charging mass. This started the animals milling and soon
the whole herd was running in a circle. The stampede had fai