supposed that those who had the matter in charge would commit any
oversight which would reveal themselves or their purpose to those from
whom they desired to keep them.

"That is the same as the camp-fire which troubled the three Apaches so
much, and which was the means of my giving them the slip."

"It must have been started by some other war-party, so that their
ca'c'lations were upsit, and you had a chance to get away during the muss.
It was a sort of free fight, you see, in which, instead of staying and
getting your head cracked, you stepped down and lift."

Unable to make anything of this particular signal-fire, the two friends
carefully searched for more. Had they been able to discover one in the
rear, they would have been assured that signaling was going on, and they
would not have dared to venture forward. Here and there along the sides of
the canon were openings or crevices, generally filled with some sort of a
vegetable growth, and into most of which quite a number of men could have
taken refuge, but which, of course, were inaccessible to their horses.

"I can't find anything that resimbles the same," said Mickey, alluding to
the camp-fire, "though there may be some one that is seen by the gintlemen
who are cooking their shins by yon one."

"Will it do to go on?"

"It won't do to do anything else. Like enough the spalpeen yonder has
obsarved us coming, and he knows that there's a party behind us, and,
being unable to do anything himsilf, he starts up the fire so as to scare
us, and turn us back into the hands of the spalpeens coming in our rear.