turned to announce that there
had only been two Indians lurking about their camp.

"And did you overtake them?" said Bart.

The chief smiled in a curious, grim way, and pointed to a couple of
scalps that hung at the belts of two of his warriors.

"They were on foot. We were mounted," he said quietly. "They deserved
to die. We had not injured them, or stolen their wives or horses. They
deserved to die."

This was unanswerable, and no one spoke, the Indians going off to bury
their dead companions, which they did simply by finding a suitable
crevice in the depths of the ravine near which they had been slain,
laying them in side by side, with their medicine-bags hung from their
necks, their weapons ready to their hands, and their buffalo robes about
them, all ready for their use in the happy hunting-grounds.

This done they were covered first with bushes, and then with stones, and
the Indians returned to camp.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

IN NATURE'S STOREHOUSE.

All this seemed to add terribly to the sense of insecurity felt by the
Doctor, and Joses was not slow to speak out.

"We may have a mob of horse-Injun down upon us at any moment," he
growled. "I don't think we're very safe."

"Joses is right," said the Doctor; "we must see if there is a rich
deposit of silver here, and then, if all seems well, we must return, and
get together a force of recruits so as to be strong enough to resist the
Indians, should they be so ill advised as to attack us, and ready to
work the mines."

"'Aven't seen no mines yet," growled Joses.

The Doctor coughed with a look of vexation upon his countenance, and,
beckoning to the chief, he took his rifle. Bart rose, and leaving Joses
in charge of the camp, they started for the edge of the canyon.

There was no likelihood of enemies being about the place after the event
of the morning; but to the little party every shrub and bush, every
stone, seemed to suggest a lurking-place for a treacherous enemy. Still
they pressed on, the chief taking them, for some unknown reason, in the
opposite route along beneath the perpendicular walls of the mountain,
which here ran straight up from the plain.

They went by a rugged patch of broken rock, and by what seemed to be a
great post stuck up there by human hands, but which proved, on a nearer
approach, to be the remains of a moderate-sized tree that had been
struck by lightning, the whole of the upper portion having been charred
away, leavi