We cleaned up the camp, and then Jed Smith arrived. While he was eating we made the beds. We drew up the tarpaulins, over blankets and quilts rolled so that the beds looked exactly as if we were in them, our feet to the fire (it was a little fire, of course) and our heads in shadow. We tied the burros short; and then we went back into the cedars and pinyons and sat down, quiet. It wasn't pitchy dark. When the sky is clear it never gets pitchy dark, in the open; and there was a quarter-moon shining, too. The night was very still. The breeze just rustled the trees, but we could hear our hearts beat. Once, about a mile away, a coyote barked like a crazy puppy. He was calling for company. The stars twinkled down through the stiff branches, and I tried to see the Great Dipper, but that took too much squirming around. We must not say a word, nor even whisper. We must just keep quiet, and listen and wait. Down the trail poor Major Henry and Kit Carson were having a harder time of it--but I would have liked to be along. All of a sudden Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand nudged me gently with his knuckles, and I nudged Jed Smith, and Jed passed it on, and it went around from one to the other, so we all knew. Somebody was coming! We could hear a stick snap, and a little laugh, off in the timber; it sounded as though somebody had run into a branch. We waited. The enemy was stealing upon our camp. We hid our faces in our coats and our hands in our sleeves, so that no white should show. It was exciting, sitting this way, waiting for the attack. The gang tiptoed up, carefully, and we could just make out two of them peering in at the beds. Then they all gave a tremendous yell, like Indians or mountain lions, and rushed us--or what they thought was us. They stepped on the beds and kicked at the tinware, and expected to scare us stiff with the noise--but you ought to have seen how quick they quit when nothing happened! We didn't pop out of the beds, and run! It was funny--and I almost burst, trying not to laugh out loud, when they stood, looking about, and feeling of the beds again. "They aren't here," said Bill Duane. At a nudge from General Ashley we had deployed, running low and swift, right and left. "Poke the fire, so we can see," said Bert Hawley. One of them did, so the fire blazed up--which was just what we wanted. Now they were inside and we were outside. They began to talk. "We'll pile up the camp, anyway." "They're around somewhere." "Let's take their burros." "Take their flags." Then General Ashley spoke up. "No, you don't!" he said. "You let those things alone." That voice, coming out of the darkness around, must have made them jump, and for a minute they didn't know what to do. Then-- "Why?" asked Bill Duane, kind of defiantly. "Wait a moment and we'll show you," answered General Ashley.