kins or crept back to their wagons, not able to see three feet in
the blackness.

Tom and Hank had taken refuge under a great Pittsburg wagon owned by
Haviland and had fastened buffalo rugs to its sides to shed some of the
rain. As soon as darkness set in and Pedro's spies found that they could
not see an arm's length from them and were drenched and half frozen by
the steady downpour, they fled from their posts and sought refuge from
the storm. It took very little to convince them that the men they were
to watch would stay where they were until dawn or later, and they did
not let Pedro know of their deflection.

"Nine, ten, eleven," muttered the first of two men leading packmules as
they felt their way from wagon to wagon. "This oughter be Haviland's,
Zeb. Yep, I kin feel thar skin walls." He bent down and raised the lower
edge of a skin. "Hank! Tom!"

"All right, Jim," came the low answer, and the two partners, bundled in
skins until they looked like nothing human, crawled from their snug
shelter and stood up, their one and constant thought being for the
covers of the hammers of their heavy rifles. Hank pushed ahead and the
night swallowed up the little party.

Uncle Joe raised himself on one elbow and peered through a small opening
in the canvas at the rear end of his first huge wagon, and got a faceful
of cold rain before he could close the opening again. He had done this a
dozen times since dark. Muttering sleepily he rolled up in his blankets
and rugs and dozed again, squirming down into the warm bed as vague
thoughts sped through his mind of what his friends were going to face.

Suddenly the soft whinny of a horse sounded squarely under him, and he
bounced from the blankets and crept to a crack where the canvas was
nailed to the tailboard of the wagon. "Hello!" he called. "Hello!"

A low voice answered him and he shivered as a trickle of cold rain
rolled down his face. "Thought you had given it up till tomorrow night.
This is a hell of a night, boys, to go wandering off from the camp. Sure
you won't get lost among th' hills?" He chuckled at the reply and
shivered again. "Sure I'll tell her Bent's. Yes. No, she won't. What?
Look here, young man; she's plumb cured of tenderfeet. Yes, I remember
everything. All right; good luck, boys. God knows you'll need it!" He
listened for a moment, heard no sounds of movement, and called again.
"What's th' matter?" There came no answer and he crept back to his
blankets, hi