some specimen of the fleshy
growth of the region to which the darkness had added a weirdness all its
own.

No. It was a man undoubtedly, and as, nerving himself more and more,
Bart walked close up, the figure turned, and said slowly:--

"I can't quite make that out, Master Bart."

"You, Joses!" exclaimed Bart, whose heart seemed to give a bound of
delight.

"Yes, sir; I thought I'd get up and watch for a bit; and just as I
looked round before coming to you, that rock took my fancy."

"Yes, it does look quaint and strange," said Bart; "I had been watching
it."

"Yes, but why do it look quaint and strange?" said Joses in a low, quiet
whisper, speaking as if a dozen savages were at his elbow.

"Because we can see it against the sky," replied Bart, who felt half
amused at the importance placed by his companion upon such a trifle.

"And why can you see it against the sky?" said Joses again. "Strikes me
there's a fire over yonder."

Bart was about to exclaim, "What nonsense!" but he recalled the times
when out hunting up stray cattle Joses had displayed a perception that
had seemed almost marvellous, and so he held his tongue.

"I'll take a turn out yonder, my lad," he said quietly; "I won't be very
long."

"Shall I wake up the Doctor?"

"No, not yet. Let him get a good rest," replied Joses. "Perhaps it's
nothing to mind; but coming out here we must be always ready to find
danger, and danger must be ready to find us on the look-out."

"I'll go with you," said Bart eagerly.

"No, that won't do," said the rough fellow sturdily. "You've got to
keep watch like they tell me the sailors do out at sea. Who's to take
care of the camp if you go away?"

"I'll stay then," said Bart, with a sigh of dissatisfaction, and the
next minute he was alone. For Joses had thrown down his blanket, and
laid his rifle upon it carefully, while over the lock he had placed his
broad Spanish hat to keep off the moisture of the night air. Then he
had gone silently off at a trot over the short and scrubby growth near
at hand.

One moment he was near; the next he had grown as it were misty in the
darkness, and disappeared, leaving Bart, fretting at the inaction, and
thinking that the task of doing duty in watching as sentry was the
hardest he had been called upon to perform.

Meanwhile the rough cattle driver and plainsman had continued his trot
till the broken nature of the ground compelled him to proceed
cautiously, threadin