The party pressed forward as rapidly as they could. The ground was rough and at times very steep, and those on foot were able to keep up with the horses without much difficulty.  
"You think the Indians will follow, uncle?" Tom asked.
 
"They will follow, you may bet your boots, Tom; by this time they have got to the bottom of the mystery. The first thing this morning some of them will go up on to the ledge where you were, follow your tracks down to the ca?on where you left the horses, and find that you came up the valley and not down it. They will have made out that there were two whites and two red-skins, and that the two red-skins have gone up the ca?on with the horses. Directly the matter is all cleared up, they will be hotter than ever for our scalps, for there is nothing a red-skin hates worse than being fooled. Of course, they will know that it is a good deal harder to wipe out seven men than three, and I don't think they will attack us openly; they know well enough that in a fair fight two red-skins, if not three, are likely to go down for each white they rub out. But they will bide their time: red-skins are a wonderful hand at that; time is nothing to them, and they would not mind hanging about us for weeks and weeks if they can but get us at last. However, we will talk it all over when the Indians join us. I don't think there is any chance of fighting to-day, but whether we shall get out of these mountains without having another scrimmage is doubtful."
 
Tom noticed that in his talk with him his uncle dropped most of the western expressions which when speaking with the others he used as freely as they did. He was now able to have a fair look at him, and found that he agreed pretty closely with the ideas he had formed of him. There was a strong likeness between him and his brother. They were about the same height, but Harry was broader and more strongly built. His face was deeply bronzed by long exposure to the wind and sun. He had a large tawny beard, while Tom's father had been clean shaved. The sailor was five years the senior, but the miner looked far younger than Tom could ever remember his father looking, for the latter had never thoroughly recovered his, health after having had a long bout of fever on the Zanzibar station; and the long stride and free carriage of his uncle was in striking contrast to the walk of his father. Both had keen gray eyes, the same outline of face, the same pleasant smile.
 
"Now that I can see you fairly, Tom," the miner said, when they halted once for the horses to come up to them, "I can make out that you are a good deal like your father as I can first remember him."
 
"I was thinking you were very like him, uncle."
 
"We used to be alike in the old days, but I reckon the different lives we led must have changed us both a great deal. He sent me once a photograph four or five years ago, and at first I should not have known it was he. I could see the likeness after a bit, but he was very much changed. No doubt I have changed still more; all this hair on my face makes a lot of difference. You see, it is a very long time since we met. I was but twenty when I left England, and I had not seen him for two or three years before that, for he was on the Mediterranean station at the time. Well, here are the horses again, and as the ground looks flatter ahead we shall have to push on to keep up with them." They were presently altogether beyond the forest, and a broad plateau of bare rock stretched away in front of them for miles.
 
"There they are," Jerry Curtis shouted. "I was beginning to feel scared that the 'Rappahoes had got them."
 
It was a minute or two before Tom could make out the distant figures, for his eyes were less accustomed to search for moving objects than were those of his companions.
 
"They are riding fast," Harry Wade said. "I reckon they have made out some Indians on their trail."
 
The little dark mass Tom had first seen soon resolved itself into two horsemen and two riderless animals. They were still three or four miles away, but in twenty minutes they reached the party advancing to meet them. The whites waved their hats and gave them a cheer as they rode up.
 
"So you have managed to get through them all right, chief?"
 
"The 'Rappahoes are dogs. They are frightened at shadows; their eyes were closed. Leaping Horse stood near their fires and saw them go forward, and knew that his white brothers must have gained the forest before the 'Rappahoes got to the rock. He found the horses safe, but the ca?on was very dark and in some places very narrow, with many rocks in the road, so that he had to stop till the moon was high. It was not until morning came that he reached the head of the ca?on, an hour's ride from here. Half an hour back Leaping Horse went to the edge and looked down. There were ten 'Rappahoes riding fast up the trail. Has my brother heard anything of the others?"
 
"Nothing whatever," Harry said. "I reckon they did not begin to move until daylight, and as we went on when the moon rose they must be a good two hours behind us. Which way do you think we had better go, chief?"
 
"Where does my brother wish to go?"
 
"It matters mighty little. I should say for a bit we had better travel along this plateau, keeping about the same distance from the timber-line. I don't think the 'Rappahoes will venture to attack us in the open. If we keep on here we can cross the divide and get into the Shoshones' country, and either go down the Buffalo and then up the Snake and so work down south, or go east and strike some of the streams running that way into the Big Horn."
 
The chief shook his head.
 
"Too far, too many bad Indians; will talk over fire tonight."
 
"That is it, chief. It is a matter that wants a good deal of talking over. Anyhow, we had better be moving on at once."
 
Tom was glad to find himself in the saddle again, and the party rode on at a steady pace for some hours, then they halted, lit a fire, and cooked a meal. Tom noticed that the Indians no longer took pains to gather dry sticks, but took the first that came to hand. He remarked this to Jerry.
 
"They know it is no use trying to hide our trail here; the two bands of Indians will follow, one up and one down, until they meet at the spot where the chief joined us. From there they can track us easy enough. Nothing would suit us better than for them to come up to us here, for we should give them fits, sartin. This is a good place. This little stream comes down from that snow peak you see over there, and we have got everything we want, for this patch of bushes will keep us in firing for a bit. You see, there are some more big hills in front of us, and we are better here than we should be among them. I expect we shall camp here for the night."
 
"Then you don't think the Indians will come up close?"
 
"Not they. They will send a spy or two to crawl up, you may be sure, but they will know better than to come within reach of our rifles."
 
"I am mighty glad to have my teeth into some deer-flesh again," Ben Gulston said. "We had two or three chances as we came along, but we dare not fire, and we have just been living on bread and bacon. Where did you kill these wapiti?"
 
"At our first halt, near Fremont's Pass. We got two."
 
"Well, you haven't eaten much, Jerry," Sam Hicks said. "I reckon four men ought pretty well to have finished off two quarters by this time."
 
"I reckon we should have finished one of the bucks, Sam; but we caught a grist of fish the same day, dried them in the sun, and I think we mostly ate them. They would not keep as well as the flesh. That is as good as the day we shot it, for up here in the dry air meat keeps a sight better than down in the plains. Give me some more tea, Sam."
 
"What do you think, mates, of camping here?" Harry Wade said. "The chief thinks we are better here than we should be if we moved on. He feels certain the red-skins won't dare attack us."
 
There was a cordial agreement in favour of a halt, for after the work they had gone through during the last week they were glad of a rest. No one would have thought half an hour afterwards that the little party engaged in washing their shirts at the stream or mending their clothes, were in the heart of a country unknown to most of them, and menaced by a savage foe. The horses cropped the scanty tufts of grass or munched the young tops of the bushes, the rifles stood stacked by the fire, near which the two Indians sat smoking and talking earnestly together, Hunting Dog occasionally getting up and taking a long careful look over the plain. As the men finished their various jobs they came back to the fire.
 
"Now, chief," Harry said, "let us hear your ideas as to what we had best do. We are all pretty old hands at mountaineering, but we reckon you know a great deal more about it than we do. You don't like the plans I proposed."
 
"No can do it," the chief said positively. "In a moon the snow will fall, and there will be no crossing mountains."
 
"That is true enough," Jerry said. "An old trapper who had lived among the Shoshones told me that nine months in the year they were shut up in the valleys by the snow on the passes."
 
"Then how can live?" the chief went on. "As long as we stay in this country the 'Rappahoes will watch us. They will tell the Bannacks and the Nez Percés, and they too would be on our trail. As long as we keep together and watch they will not come, they fear the white man's rifle; but we cannot live without hunting, and then they kill one, two, till all killed. At night must always watch, at day cannot hunt. How we live? What good to stay? If we stop all killed sure."
 
There was silence round the circle. Every one of them felt the truth of the Indian's words, and yet they hated the thought of abandoning their search for gold, or, failing that, of a return home with their horses laden with beaver skins.
 
Harry was the first to speak. "I am afraid these varmint have interfered with our plans, mates. If we had had the luck to drop into one of the upper valleys without being noticed we could have hunted and trapped there and looked for gold for months without much chance of being discovered, but this has upset it all. I am afraid that what the chief says is true. If we keep together we starve, if we break up and hunt we shall be ambushed and killed. I hate giving up anything I have set my mind on, but this time I don't see a way out of it. We ain't the first party that has come up here and had to go back again with empty hands, and we know what happened to that party of twenty old-time miners from California two years ago, though none of them ever got back to tell the tale. We knew when we started, it wur just a chance, and the cards have gone against us."
 
"That is so," Ben agreed; "if it had turned out well we might have made a good strike. It ain't turned out well, and as every day we stay here there will be more of those varmint swarming round us, I say the sooner we get out of this dog-goned country the better."
 
"You can count me in with you, Ben," Sam Hicks said. "We have gone in for the game and we don't hold hands, and it ain't no use bluffing against them red-skins. We sha'n't have lost much time arter all, and I reckon we have all learned something. Some day when the railroad goes right across, Uncle Sam will have to send a grist of troops to reckon up with the red-skins in these hills, and arter that it may be a good country for mining and trapping, but for the present we are a darned sight more likely to lose our scalps than to get skins."
 
"Well, Leaping Horse, which way would you advise us to take, then?"
 
"Go straight back to ca?on, ride down there, cross river, go up mountains other side, pass them north of union Peak, come down on upper water Big Wind River. From there little way on to Green River. Leaping Horse never been there, but has heard. One long day's ride from here, go to upper waters of Green River."
 
"That sounds good," Jerry Curtis said. "If we could once strike the Green we should be out of the 'Rappahoe country altogether. I have known two or three men who have been up the Green nearly to its head, and there is good hunting and a good many beaver in the side streams. I should not have thought it would have come anywhere like as near as this, but I don't doubt the chief is right."
 
"union Peak," the chief said, pointing to a crag rising among a tumble of hills to the south.
 
"Are you sure, chief?"
 
The Indian nodded. "Forty, fifty miles away," he said. "Leaping Horse has been to upper waters of Green River, seen the peak from other side."
 
"That settles it, then," Harry said. "That is our course, there cannot be a doubt. I should never have proposed the other if I had had an idea that we were within sixty or seventy miles of the Green River. And you think we had better take the ca?on you came up by, chief?"
 
The Indian nodded. "If go down through forest may be ambushed. Open ground from here back to ca?on. 'Rappahoes most in front. Think we go that way, not think we go back. Get good start. Once across river follow up little stream among hills other side, that the way to pass. If 'Rappahoes follow us we fight them."
 
"Yes, we shall have them at an advantage there, for they would have to come up under our fire, and there are sure to be places where half a dozen men could keep fifty at bay. Very well, chief, that is settled. When do you think we had better start?"
 
"When gets dark," the chief replied. "No lose time, more Indian come every hour. Keep fire burning well, 'Rappahoes think we camp here. Take horses a little way off and mount beyond light of fire."
 
"You think they will be watching us?"
 
"Sure to watch. First ride north half an hour, then turn and ride to ca?on. If spies see us go off take word to friends we gone north. Too dark to follow trail. They think they catch us easy to-morrow, and take up trail in morning; but too late then, we cross river before that."
 
There was a general murmur of assent. The thought of being constantly watched, and suddenly attacked when least expecting it, made them feel restless, and the thought of early action was pleasant to them.
 
"You don't think that there are any spies watching us now, uncle, do you?"
 
"Not close, Tom; they would know better than that. They could see us miles away if we were to mount and ride off, and it is only when it gets dark that they would venture to crawl up, for if one were sighted in the daytime he would not have a ghost of a chance of getting away, for we could ride him down sartin."
 
"Well, I reckon we may as well take a sleep," Sam Hicks said. "You lie down for one, anyhow, Harry, for you watched last evening. We will toss up which of us keeps awake."
 
"Leaping Horse will keep watch," the chief said quietly. "No fear of Indians, but better to watch."
 
Knowing the power of the red-skins to keep awake for an almost unlimited time, none of the others thought of refusing the offer, and in a few minutes all were sound asleep. Towards sunset they were on their feet again. Another meal was cooked and eaten, then as it became dusk the horses were gathered fifty yards away, and Hunting Dog and Tom took their places beside them.
 
"Keep your eyes open and your rifle handy, Tom," his uncle said. "It is like enough that some young brave, anxious to distinguish himself, may crawl up with the intention of stampeding the ponies, though I don't think he would attempt it till he thought most of us were asleep. Still, there is no saying."
 
The watch was undisturbed, and soon it became so dark that objects could no longer be seen fifty yards away. Tom began to feel nervous. Every tuft of ground, every little bush seemed to him to take the form of a crawling Indian, and he felt a great sense of relief when he saw the figures round the fire rise and walk towards him.
 
"I am glad you have come, uncle," he said frankly; "I began to feel very uncomfortable several times. It seemed to me that some of the bushes moved."
 
"That i............