"I thought I heard a noise once, down by the horses, but it must ha' been a coyote or a badger," Jake was saying. "It's jet black now, and if they haven't seen us they won't 'till daylight. I think you'll be safe enough. If you get up against it don't lose your head. Take your time; aim safe--not too high--an' let 'im have it." Jack climbed out bravely, but I thought I felt his frame tremble as he went. I was none too happy myself. I lay awake, I don't know how long, counting the stars. Jake had made a bed of the tent on the prairie and was snoring with provoking regularity. It seemed to me that snore of his must be heard for miles through the silent night. Suddenly Jack came rushing in upon us, falling over Jake and tumbling himself, headlong, on the ground. The rifle flew from his hands, and he was hunting about for it, frantically, in the darkness. "It won't go off!" he shouted, in a hoarse whisper. "The damned thing won't go off!" "Did you see him?" whispered Jake, while I, wide awake, jumped from the wagon. "As plain as day, coming up the hill. I pulled on him, steady and low like you said, but it wouldn't go off." Even as he spoke a dim form slowly hove in sight. I stood back with my heart thumping. It did not come fast, but its approach out of the darkness was the more terrifying for its deliberation. He was almost upon us before, evidently scenting Jake, the buckskin whinnied. Jack was almost in collapse from excitement and mortification, but Jake rolled and doubled on his blanket with loud guffaws of merriment. "But tell me, jokes aside," said Jack, at length, "why wouldn't the rifle go off? Suppose it had been Sitting Crow? Why wouldn't it go off?" "Well, fer one reason," Jake explained when he could speak calmly, "I've no notion fer walkin' back to Regina, nor fer drivin' with one nag, neither. So when I took the hobbles off one o' the buckskins, figgerin' he'd likely work up here durin' the night, I also took the cartridges out o' the rifle. Can't afford to have no horse like that plunked low down, careful, in the middle." "But suppose it really had been Sitting Crow," Jack persisted. "A nice mess we'd have been in." "Can't suppose that," said Jake; "simply can't suppose it. Because, you see, there ain't no Sittin' Crow. Yep, some of 'em is awful green," he added. CHAPTER V. When daylight came we had breakfast and started on our journey again in rather sheepish silence. The strain lasted for perhaps half an hour; then Jake gave a great guffaw, smothering his face in his hands. "Yep, some of 'em is awful green," he quoted again, proving for himself a good memory as well as a sense of satire. "Jupiter!" and there was another outburst of hilarity. "Sittin' Crow!" and more guffaws. "To-night we'll be in the haunts of Roostin' Turkey! Giddap! You danged old buckskin, it's good fer you I emptied the magazine!"