steam man, he saw him standing motion less, as before, and with not a
single Indian in sight!

CHAPTER XIII. AN APPALLING DANGER.

NOT a second was to be lost. The next moment the boy had run across
the intervening space and pulled open the furnace door of the steam
man. He saw a few embers yet smoldering in the bottomenough to
rekindle the wood. Dashing in a lot from the wagon, he saw it begin
blazing up. He pulled the valve wide open, so that there might not be
a moment's delay in starting, and held the water in the boiler at a
proper level. The smoke immediately began issuing from the pipe or
hat, and the hopes of the boy rose correspondingly.

The great danger was that the Indians would return before he could
start. He kept glancing behind him, and it was with a heart beating
with despair that he heard several whoops, and saw at the same instant
a number of red-skins coming toward him.

The boy gave a jolt to the wagon, which communicated to the steam man,
and it instantly started, at quite a moderate gait, but rapidly
increased to its old-fashioned run.

It was just in the nick of time, for two minutes later the savages
would have been upon him. As it was, when they saw the giant moving
off they paused for a moment in amazement.

But their previous acquaintance with the apparatus had robbed it of
all its supernatural attributes, and their halt lasted but a few
seconds. The next moment they understood that there was some human