`Who are coming -- friends?'

`Why, friends, of course. That's Starlight's signal. See that smoke?
The half-caste always sends that up -- like the blacks in his mother's tribe,
I suppose.'

`Any cattle or horses with them?' said Jim.

`No, or they'd send up two smokes. They'll be here about dinner-time,
so we must get ready for them.'

We had plenty of time to get ourselves or anything else ready.
In about four hours we began to look at them through a strong spyglass
which father brought out. By and by we got sight of two men coming along
on horseback on the top of the range the other side of the far wall.
They wasn't particularly easy to see, and every now and then
we'd lose sight of 'em as they got into thick timber or behind rocks.

Father got the spyglass on to 'em at last, pretty clear,
and nearly threw it down with an oath.

`By ----!' he says, `I believe Starlight's hurt somehow.
He's so infernal rash. I can see the half-caste holding him on.
If the police are on his tracks they'll spring the plant here,
and the whole thing'll be blown.'

We saw them come to the top of the wall, as it were, then they stopped
for a long while, then all of a sudden they seemed to disappear.

`Let's go over to the other side,' says father; `they're coming