Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/113

 no means impossible that this risk would be taken.

Another policy to be feared almost as much was that the warriors would gallop up and fire into the camp, circling off again until they could reload and repeat their attack. The discharge would be quite sure to kill or wound some of the oxen and horses. It was not improbable, too, that, despite the protection of those on guard, the whistling bullets would find some of them.

The guide thought that by venturing out on the plains he might get a glimpse of their enemies and penetrate their plans. Could he do so, possibly he might take steps to baffle them. Several ways presented themselves to his fertile mind.

The situation was one which called for all the woodcraft of which he was master. Naturally gifted in this respect, he had been educated in the best of all schools—experience. Those who had trapped and hunted with him agreed that he had no superior, and never was he more anxious to succeed than now.

Leaving the wagon on the north, he walked toward the Platte, which flowed only two or three hundred yards away. He stooped low