ad, Don Lascelles," he
cried. "We are to set you well upon your journey."

As he spoke, he turned and raised his hand, with the result that the
next in command rode forward with a troop of the body of cavalry, to
take the lead till they had reached the first halting-place, where the
lancers said farewell, and parted from the adventurers, both parties
cheering loudly when the soldiery rode slowly back towards Lerisco,
while the waggon-train continued its long, slow journey towards the
mountains.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE THIRSTY DESERT.

The journey was without adventure. Signs of Indians were seen, and this
made those of the train more watchful, but there was no encounter with
the red men of the desert, till an alarm was spread one morning of a
party of about twenty well-mounted Indians being seen approaching the
camp, just as it was being broken up for a farther advance towards the
mountains.

The alarm spread; men seized their rifles, and they were preparing to
fire upon the swiftly approaching troop, when Bart and Joses set spur to
their horses, and went off at full gallop, apparently to encounter the
enemy.

But they had not been deceived. Even at a distance Bart knew his friend
the Beaver at a glance, and the would-be defenders of the camp saw the
meeting, and the hearty handshaking that took place.

This was a relief, and the men of the expedition gazed curiously at the
bronzed, well-armed horsemen of the plains, who sat their wiry, swift
little steeds as if they were part and parcel of themselves, when they
rode up to exchange greetings with the Doctor.

From that hour the Beaver's followers took the place of the lancers,
leading the van and closing up the rear, as well as constantly hovering
along the sides of the long waggon-train, which they guarded watchfully
as if it were their own particular charge.

The Doctor placed implicit reliance in the chief, who guided them by a
longer route, but which proved to be one which took them round the base
of the two mountainous ridges they had to pass, and thus saved the
adventurers a long and arduous amount of toil with the waggons in the
rugged ground.

At last, when they were well in sight of the flat-topped mountain, and
the Doctor was constantly reining in his horse to sweep the horizon with
his glass in search of the Apaches, the chief rode up to say that he and
his men were about to advance on a scouting expedition to sweep the
country between them