ye all day that I could
smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uh
fightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that I
didn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.

"Now," he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression that
had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case of
attack, "you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me down
here like you was jest curiouslike over what I'm locatin'. That'll
keep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight MEBBY!" He
pulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a
full inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberation
that was masterly in its convincingness. He stood looking at the ground
for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading
his horse behind him.

"You go next, Pink," Weary said shortly, and with his horse began
edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwise
demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steep
little slope.

"Don't look towards the ridge, boys," Applehead warned from below.
"Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dang
triggers offen their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n'
start anything."

So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment,
rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. "You seem
to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands," he reproved as he went.

"Lite's a-comin' right now," Applehead retorted, peering at the ridge
a couple of hundred yards distant. "Git back down the draw 's fur's
yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n'
see--"

"Ping-NG-NG!" a bullet, striking a rock on the edge of the draw fifty
feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.

"Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin'
that way. But it's hard t' git the range shootin' down, like that,"
Applehead remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.

Close beside him Lite's rifle spoke, its little steelshod message flying
straight as a homing honeybee for the spitting flash he had glimpsed up
there among the rocks. Whether he did any damage or not, a dozen rifles
answered venomously and flicked up tiny spurts of sand in the close
neighborhood of the four.

"If they