"Looks a pretty strong outfit," would run his thoughts, if put into words. "Looks a pretty strong outfit. The boss--two guides, or scouts--six or eight bullwhackers--a chap to worry the horse team-- probably two or three more men thrown in--a dozen or more all told-- possibly a score. But then--the family coaches--Lord knows how many women-folk and brats they hold--all down-Easters, too, most likely, who never saw a redskin, except a drunken one at the posts. A dozen men ought to be able to stand off the reds; and anyhow whether they can or not the next few hours will decide. But then they've got their women to look after, and their cattle to mind. No, no; they must be idiots to come crossing this section at this time of day." The observer's reflections are, to say the least of it, ominous for those who belong to the waggon train. Let us see what there is to justify them. Far away in front of him, at least as far as the waggon train itself-- ahead of it, but rather off its line of route, is another object; an object which he has espied before the outfit appeared, and the sight whereof has kept him immovable on his lofty observatory for upwards of an hour. This object the inexperienced eye would hardly notice, or would pass over as an indistinct clump of scrub lying on the slope of a deep ravine. To the practised eye of the watcher, however, that object stood revealed in its true light at the very first glance, and it hardly needed the aid of the powerful double glass which he carried, and which rendered an object at ten miles almost as distinct as one at a hundred yards, to tell him that the harmless-looking clump of scrub was nothing less formidable than a strong band of Indians--a strong band of red warriors _on the war-path_. "That'll be it," he mused. "The old game. They'll jump that outfit at yonder creek while it's unhitching just about sundown--rather over two hours from this. If those chaps are, as I suspect, down-Easters, they'll be thrown into the liveliest confusion, and while a few of the reds run off every hoof of the cattle, the rest'll rush the whole show. Their guide or guides can't be worth a damn, anyhow, to judge from the free and easy way in which the whole concern is shuffling along. There'll be fresh scalps among that war-party to-night, I'll lay long odds; but--it's rough on the women-folk, to put it mildly."