This completed, the phantom-like figures descended like so many
shadows, and began tugging again at the bowlders.

Not a word was exchanged, for each knew what was required of him.
Fully an hour more was occupied, by which time the labor was finished.

The bowlders were arranged in the form of an impassable wall across
the narrow valley, and the steam man was so thoroughly imprisoned that
no human aid could ever extricate him.

CHAPTER XX. THE CONCLUDING CATASTROPHE.

BALDY BICKNELL, the trapper, was the first to discover the peril of
himself and party.

When the Indians had completed their work it lacked only an hour of
daylight. Having done all that was necessary, the savages took their
stations behind the wall, lying flat upon the ground, where they were
invisible to the whites, but where every motion of theirs could be
watched and checkmated.

When the trapper opened his eyes he did not stir a limba way into
which he had got during his long experience on the frontiers. He
merely moved his head from side to side, so as to see anything that
was to be seen.

The first object that met his eye was the boy Brainerd, sound asleep.
Apprehensive then that something had occurred, he turned his startled
gaze in different directions, scanning everything as well as it could
be done in the pale moonlight.