She was on her feet, vibrant with energy, alive to the exigencies of impending action. Bim was saddling the horses and Quelele had the pack on the mule when they joined them. Bim briefly explained to the girl his survey of the gorge for strategical strength; at any cost they must move up until they could find some sheep trail or other practicable ledge giving escape from the flood water channel. “If that doddering old medicine man would only quit his sing-song business and come back for a rifle we’d be that much better off,” the big fellow grumbled. When all was in readiness Quelele led the way up the tortuous watercourse and through the mighty gates of porphyry nearly blocking the farther reaches. They were forced to lead the animals, whose sure-footedness was put to the test every yard of the advance. Beyond the great pillars the gorge opened to a rough amphitheatre with less steeply sloping sides. A narrow upward-springing ledge of rock led away from the dry watercourse to a rock pulpit some seventy-five or a hundred feet above. This they followed, to discover there was space for their horses to stand behind the horn of malapais and still be screened from observation from below. Quelele made some mysterious passes with a tether rope which yoked all the animals to a single line that was anchored at both ends. “Look,” Benicia cried as Bim was taking the carbines from the saddle scabbards. They followed her pointing hand and saw a dark spot against the opposite wall of the gorge and higher than their level. A midget figure was outlined against the opening of a cave. It was El Doctor at his business of propitiating Elder Brother--El Doctor, much needed behind the stock of a carbine. The men hallooed to him but he did not turn. “Go over and get that crazy fool,” Bim commanded Quelele. But the big Indian, instead of obeying immediately, turned up the ledge and made for a high point on the shoulder of the rock bastion constituting one of the portals of the upper gorge. They watched him as he scaled the almost perpendicular face of black lava. From the top Quelele had a view of the cañon’s far-away exit onto the desert floor several miles from the niche where the treasure seekers had refuge. The watchers saw him lift himself cautiously over the top of his lookout and peer to westward. Then he came scrambling and sliding down. “They come into the valley,” the Papago reported. “Too late to get El Doctor.” It was Bim with his desert craft who made disposition of the little force of defence. Quelele he sent back to the aerie with orders not to shoot until he heard shots from the whites; the Indian’s fire from the rear, once Urgo and his men had passed the rocky portals, would throw the rurales into confusion. Grant and Benicia he disposed behind an outcrop of porphyry a little behind and above the protected animals.