One of the Indians turned over and drew a long, throaty
breath. He had indeed been asleep, and perhaps he was
going to awake. The thought of the contingency was too
much for the backwoodsman. He crawled forward as stealthily
as a panther, and next moment one sinewy hand was on the
Indian's throat, the other was across the mouth, and a
knee was planted on his chest Simultaneously Jacques was
on top of the other Indian; Pasmore and Douglas jumped
to their feet. In less time than it takes to write it,
the hands of the Indians were secured behind their backs,
gags were placed upon their mouths, their fire-arms and
knives were secured, and the latter were flashed before
their eyes. They were told that if they remained still
no harm would come to them, but if they showed the
slightest intention of alarming the camp their earthly
careers would be speedily closed. Neither of them being
prepared to die, they lay still, like sensible redskins.
Then Rory left the tepee and in two minutes more returned
with two rifles, which he had managed to purloin in some
mysterious way.

Pasmore took the lead, then came Rory, and immediately
after him Douglas and Jacques.

It was a miserable mongrel of an Indian dog that
precipitated matters. They came full upon it as it stood
close to a Red River cart, with cocked ears and tail in
air. The inopportune brute threw up its sharp snout and
gave tongue to a series of weird, discordant yelps after
the manner of dogs which are half coyotes.

"Come on!" cried Pasmore, "we've got to run for it now.
Let's make a bee-line straight up the valley!"

With rifles at the ready they rushed between the tepees.
It was run for it now with a vengeance. Next moment the
startled Indians came pouring out of their lodges. Red
spurts of fire flashed out in all directions, and the
deafening roar of antiquated weapons made night hideous.
Luckily for the escaping party they had cleared the
encampment, so the result was that the Indians, imagining
that they were being attacked by the Blackfeet or the
British, at once began to blaze away indiscriminately.
The results were disastrous to small groups of their own
people who were foolish enough to leave their doorways.
It would have been music in the ears of the fleeing ones
had not three or four shots whizzed perilously close to
their heads, thus somewhat interfering with their
appreciation of the _contretemps_.

But their detection was inevitable. Before the