It was coming quickly, then it saw me and crouched low with that intense menace that shows in a wild beast before it springs. I raised my gun to fire and something held me back. Then I saw what it was.
"Here, Santa," I cried, "come, old dog."
He stalked up to me as soon as he heard my voice. But he showed no emotion. He was not one of those effusive dogs, who wag their tails and jump around in delight.
"Where did you come from?" I asked, "where"s Captain?"
Santa then began to trail around on top of the hill, and before I could stop him he had jumped down and run under the rock where our camp was.
"h.e.l.lo, what is this?" I heard Jim exclaim.
"It"s Santa," I said.
"Where"s the captain?" questioned Jim.
"He seemed to be looking for him," I replied. "Perhaps they are in trouble too, or the captain may have sent him out to trail us. Anyway, he adds one more to the garrison."
"Is my time up?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "I will stand guard now and have Santa to help me."
"All right," I said, "I wouldn"t mind having a little sleep."
CHAPTER VI
WITHIN THE FORT
"Anything doing?" inquired Jim.
"I saw one Indian," I replied, "when I went down to the end of the rock trail and I hit him with a stone."
"Struck him out the first thing," grinned Jim.
"Sure."
"Well, no stones for me," said Jim, "if I see one of those red beggars I will give him the lead."
"How did you sleep?" I asked.
"Fine," he replied, "why not? That brush was soft and the fire kept me comfortable."
"I"ll try it myself," I said and curled up in the nest that Jim had just vacated.
"Now don"t be alarmed," said Jim, "if you hear an occasional shot. You won"t need to show up unless you hear two or three in succession. Santa and I will defend the fort now, so you can take things easy."
"That suits me," I replied, "don"t forget to take your umbrella and be sure and don"t get your feet wet."
"You needn"t worry, my boy, I will take care of myself."
Then Jim crawled out of the door and disappeared in the darkness, followed by Santa. I can not explain why, but I felt perfectly comfortable and entirely safe and was soon fast asleep.
The next thing I knew, Jim was standing over me.
"Were you going to sleep all day?" he inquired.
"Why, it is daylight," I exclaimed, sitting up, "and it has cleared too."
For I saw a patch of sunshine laid like a mat in front of the door of our camp.
"It"s a fine day for hunting Apaches," remarked Jim.
"Anything happened while I was asleep?" I enquired.
"All quiet along the Potomac," replied Jim. "Santa Anna had one growling spell, but I guess it was the stomach ache. I skirmished around below the rock but I couldn"t find anything."
"You idiot," I said, "didn"t you know better than that. It"s a wonder that they didn"t get you."
"I guess you scared "em so when you flung the rock at the dark brother that they haven"t dared to peep since."
"I suppose that we might as well sit down to our frugal meal," I suggested.
It certainly was as I described it and it made me feel pretty gloomy when I thought how short we were for food and water, especially the latter. Just then we heard a deep growl from Santa, whom Jim had left at the head of the trail on guard.
In a second Jim and I had sprung out on deck to find out the cause of the disturbance. We found Santa barring the way so that Piute and Coyote could not go down the trail.
"Good dog," said Jim, patting him on the head. "The ponies are thirsty, I reckon, and thought that they would go for water. Lucky Santa stopped them."
"We will have to fix it so they can"t escape," I said.
This we had no great difficulty in doing. It was the most exciting incident of the day. We found that the Apaches were on the alert, for whenever one of us showed himself, just the lift of the head, there came a quick shot or the unerring flight of an arrow.
"It"s lucky for us," remarked Jim, "that this is a wide valley instead of a canyon, for if they could climb up anywhere and get the drop on us our goose would be cooked."
"Look a here," I said, when a lucky shot just grazed the top of my head, "we can improve on this situation by making some loopholes."
"Sure," replied Jim, "that"s the idea. Why didn"t we think of it before?"
After this was done we could carry on our observations safely.
"h.e.l.lo, look a here, Jim," I called some time later. "There"s some more Indians coming to the rendezvous."
Jim came over and took a squint through the loophole.
"That is a jolly looking crowd coming up the valley. Must be fifty of them and they have got on their spring paint too. Ain"t they beauts?"
said Jim.