keep it dry; and for the same reason, temporarily carried my pistols
above the water-line.

The making of these slight alterations occupied only a minute or so;
and, as soon as they were completed, I moved forward through the water.

The very depth of the stream proved a circumstance in my favour. In
wading, both horse and man make less noise in deep than in shallow
water; and this was an important consideration. The night was still--
too still for my wishes--and the plunging sound would have been heard
afar off; but fortunately there were rapids below--just where the stream
forced its way through the spur of the hill--and the hissing sough of
these, louder in the still night, was borne upon the air to the distance
of many miles. Their noise, to my own ears, almost drowned the plashing
made by Moro and myself. I had noted this _point d'avantage_ before
embarking upon the enterprise.

At the distance of two hundred yards from the bushes, I paused to look
back. My purpose was to fix in my memory the direction of the hill, and
more especially the point where my comrades had been left in ambush: in
the event of a close pursuit, it would not do to mistake their exact
situation.

I easily made out the place, and observed that, for several reasons, a
better could not have been chosen. The trees that timbered the crest of
the hill were of a peculiar kind--none more so upon the earth. They
were a species of arborescent yucca, then unknown to botanists. Many of
them were forty feet in height; and their thick angular branches, and
terminal fascicles of rigid leaves, outlined against the sky, formed a
singular, almost an unearthly spectacle. It was unlike any other
vegetation upon earth, more resembling a grove of cast-iron than a wood
of exogenous trees.

Why I regarded the spot as favourable for an ambush, was chiefly this: a
party approaching it from the plain, and climbing the hill, might fancy
a host of enemies in their front; for the trees themselves, with their
heads of radiating blades, bore a striking resemblance to an array of
plumed gigantic warriors. Many of the yuccas were only six feet in
height, with tufted heads, and branchless trunks as gross as the body of
a man, and they might readily have been mistaken for human beings.

I perceived at a glance the advantage of the position. Should the
Indians pursue me, and I could succeed in reaching the timber before
them, a volley from my comrades would ch