By this time, Arnold had rejoined us. He had as yet seen nothing. Leaving him, therefore, to follow the trail, I went up the mountain to try my luck. As I reached its summit, and cast a careless glance down the other side, which was bare of timber, I caught sight of what I believed must be our Indians. Some juniper trees concealed me. Descending a few paces on the side where I had left the boys, I swung my hat. They understood my meaning and came to a halt. Arnold and Painter very soon joined me, and carefully concealing our movements, we crept again to the summit. As they coincided with me, we immediately returned to our party. Upon informing Captain Knight of what we had seen, he condescended to express his gratification, and immediately ordered his men to continue the trail we had hitherto been pursuing, and follow the red-skins round the far side of the mountain. On my venturing to suggest that he had better send only a portion of his men up the valley, he inquired what reason induced me to advise such a division of his command. "All the red devils are smart enough, Captain! Smoke-creek Sam is 'cuter than every Yankee pedler rolled into one, if that one had been between Honey Lake and the Humboldt for the last five years." "Well! What if he is?" "He's sure to smell us out. But if you will give me part of your men, I will take them with my boys across the mountain. Between us, not a red-skin shall escape." "That's so, Captain!" said Harry Arnold, emphatically. "Mose gives good advice." Whether or no Harry's opinion was so little flattering to his own judgment or not, that he was riled by the preference given to my counsel, modestly as it had been offered him, I am unable to say. With an obstinacy which may be a good thing in regular war, but is surely the reverse of it in following Indians, he would neither abandon his previous determination, nor give me one of his men. He, indeed, did all but order me to continue with him. My back was now up. To his astonishment he found out that I was to the full as--perhaps, even more determined to have my own way in a matter I thoroughly understood, than he was. Possibly, although I do not like to venture such an opinion touching any of Uncle Sam's servants, he may have had no wish to catch the red-skins. In entertaining such a disinclination, he would only be imitating too closely the general policy of our respected relative. Whatever his wish may have been, I ordered the boys to their saddles, and leaving him, struck a long cañon we had recently passed, which led us almost to the spot on which the Indians had just been sighted, whom Arnold and Ben Painter as well as myself believed to be the Smoke-creek gang. When we reached the valley in which they were, we found ourselves immediately ahead of the course they were taking. No sooner had they spotted our party, which it was easy to do, in a tract of country almost entirely bare of foliage of any description, than they came to a halt.