Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/100

 softly around the rear of the wagon, but before he discovered the big fellow lying on the ground, he noticed his heavy breathing.

“Asleep,” muttered his master disgustedly; “I wonder that he kept awake so long.”

Without returning to his former position, Alden again scrutinized the plain spread out to view. In the flickering illumination, he could not descry anything out of the usual order of things.

“It must have been a mistake but I don’t understand—helloa!”

A ragged cloud again swept past the moon, whose full rays descended upon the earth. Could Alden Payne believe his eyes?

Barely a hundred yards away stood an Indian warrior. He seemed to be looking at the youth himself, though that was impossible because Alden must have been invisible to the keenest of eyes while wrapped in the shadow. The red man was as erect as a statue, a rifle in one hand which rested at the side below his hip. The youth noted even the feathers which projected from the crown of his head, the naked chest, the sash around the waist and the handle of the knife thrust behind it. A glimpse could be caught of the leggings below, most of