In another instant I was working my ramrod through the earthen roof of our air-tight, although scarcely pregnable citadel. The earth was soft, and in less than a minute I felt its end had reached fresh air, although none of that desirable commodity had yet reached us. In order to enlarge the hole I had made, I was working the slip of wrought-iron with which I had produced it, round and round, when a large piece of rock fell down from the side of it, with a quantity of loose soil. It scraped my shoulder. "What tumblee?" screamed Pig-tail Bobby. "Hold your tongue, you fool!" said Partridge. "Don't you feel, Mose has saved us from stifling." With the fresh air, a little light, it was very little, came through the hole to us. As for me, I felt a new man. Looking around for a barrel which I had seen in the excavation when we had first visited it, with its proprietor, I set it erect under the ventilator so unexpectedly manufactured. Mounting on it, I protruded my head through the bottom of the _chapparal_. Day had already broken. Through the under branches of the trees I could see the still smoking timbers of the burned-down house. The rascally Pah-utes were dancing around them, in fiendish glee. It was too great a temptation to be resisted, and I asked John to hand me my rifle. After he had handed it to me, I passed its barrel through the bushes with great care, so as to avoid any noise which might attract the attention of the Indians. Never, possibly, was any red devil more surprised than that Pah-ute, when he felt the leaden messenger of death crashing through his skull. His surprise, however, was but momentary. It silenced him forever. They handed me another rifle, and another of the red-skins fell. Yet another, and another--until, at last, when nine of the Indians had been slain, the remainder of them fled from the scene they had so recently fancied one of complete victory. We now quitted the cave which had served us so well, having taken some pork from the barrel I had used to stand upon with so much advantage. While cooking this on the still burning embers of the house, I saw the charred carcase of the poor hound, who had given us so timely a warning. He had been forgotten by his master, when we took refuge in the citadel, constructed by him without the indispensable requisite of an air-hole. As we were drinking a little sugarless and milkless coffee, chancing to turn my head, I saw something moving in a large sage-brush. Leaping to my feet, I started for it, and as I did so an Indian broke from it and ran. He did this in a zigzag manner, leaping from side to side, which rendered it a matter of extreme difficulty to fetch him. At length, however, I was enabled to accomplish this. He must have been on a scouting expedition from the party we had so narrowly escaped. If so, he had not well calculated the time of his return. Half an hour later or earlier, he might have kept his scalp.