you can count on me that the red devils won't get you."

Then, going to his pack, he undid it, and took out a double
handful of yellow nuggets and a number of canvas bags. These he
deposited in the pot-hole, and, prying up the flat stone of the
fireplace, laid it over them, and covered the stone with embers.

"It's a ten to one shot that they finish me," he reflected; "but
the wages I've paid for by a year of hard work and absence from
her side, stay just as near Echo Allen as I can bring them alive,
and, if there's any truth in what they say about spirits
disclosing in dreams the place of buried treasure, with the
chance of my getting them to her after I am dead."

Taking the useless boulders from the edge of the cliff, but
carefully, so as not to expose himself to the fire of the
Apaches, he piled them on top of the upper wall in such a fashion
as to form little turrets. He left an opening in each, through
which he could observe, in turn, each point of the compass whence
danger might be expected, and could fire his Winchester without
exposing himself. Then he began going from post to post on a
continuous round of self-imposed sentinel duty. "If I could only
climb the sahuaro," he thought, "and fly my red shirt as a flag,
to let the Rurales know I've flanked the enemy, it might hurry
them along in time to put a crimp in these devils before they get
me. But it'll have to be 'Hold the Fort' without any 'Oh, Say
Can You See?' business. Anyhow, I'm flying the rattlesnake flag
of Bunker Hill, 'Don't Tread on Me!' Whether the Rurales see it
or not, I've saved their hides. If the Apaches had got to this
fort first, gee, how they would have crumpled up the Greasers as