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124 cocked on hot stones, was eaten slowly to help pass the time. Their cave was on the west side of the cañon and was first to (all in shadow as the sun sank. There was no sound from the Indians, no sign of them though any movements could hare been easily masked by the trees. It was oppressively warm, even after the shadow crept down the eastern side and left the entire ravine in twilight. Harvey sniffed the air.

"Smells kind of coppery," he announced. "Thunder breeding up on the mesa. Might be rain. Doggone my hide, what in tarnation's thet?'

The cave mouth was perhaps thirty feet above the cañon floor. Smoke was beginning to drift up. There was a crackling sound, the smell of burning wood, and occasional floating sparks. Harvey and Stone crawled over their barrier and peered down, screened by the darkness. The silence of the Indians had not been purposeless. Under cover of the trees they had stolen up and down cañon, secured driftwood and other timber, returning cat-footed, close to the western cliff, unobserved and unsuspected, and piled up their fuel against the face of the precipice directly under the entrance, and winging out to right and left. The uneven character of the escarpment protected them now from sight of Stone and Harvey as they stayed under protruding ledges and occasionally fed the fire.

The purpose was plain. The blaze would be kept up through the night, or as long as it served their purpose. There would be no escaping unseen from