“Do I remember it? Why don’t you ask me if I remember those lizards and the hair-raising yell of the crazy man in the cave? I wonder if you remember the greaser who knocked you over with a bullet and then jumped into a hole a thousand feet deep? I think I do remember some things about that trip, pard, and they make me shudder every time they come to mind--especially those crawly things and about ten million bats.” “Here’s a good place to halt,” said the scout. “We are hidden here from a straight half mile beyond, and can rest, and eat a bite, and perhaps smoke a whiff, while the game possibly walks into our trap.” Darkness dropped like a vast filmy blanket, and the silent watchers heard only the impatient movements of the horses, anxious to get back to the slope below the cañon’s outlet, where the grass looked green and inviting. At last the scout said: “I fear, Hickok, that our plans have slipped up somewhere. I think it would be well for one of us to take the horses back to the grazing lands and the other stroll up the cañon to see what has become of our pards. Perhaps they were hurt worse than it seemed.” “That is the way I look at it, pard, and the one who goes with the horses ought to remain near enough to the cañon to keep informed as to who goes and comes.” “Very well, you look out for the horses, and I’ll see if I can discover what has become of our pards.” Wild Bill Hickok soon had the horses hitched out where they could graze upon the green, moist grass, and then moved back where he could both hear the feeding animals and any man or horse that should pass out of the mouth of the cañon. The scout had moved away in the darkness up the soft bed of sand and gravel, on the alert every instant for any sound of those whom he had expected to come that way. But he was destined to be deeply disappointed and mystified, for the light of another day revealed a state of affairs wholly surprising. CHAPTER XX. NOMAD’S STRANGE WEAPON. When Little Cayuse rode from view of his companions he had suddenly come in full view of a pair of horsemen, leading two ponies, galloping down the gully which opened at Navi’s feet. As the Indian youth looked for the most favorable spot from which to make the leap to the sand below, he discovered a fuse spluttering in the dead grass and almost under Navi’s feet. Cayuse jerked his heels to the pinto’s sides, and the little fellow bounded ahead and over the brink just as the explosion came. At the bottom both boy and pony were buried in the shower of sand and gravel which followed the explosion, but neither was injured. As Cayuse and Navi scrambled out of the sand into a settling cloud of dust which hid them from view and probably saved both from becoming the target of the fugitives, old Nomad burst into view over the crest of the hill and through the smoke and dust.