Too late now to gain the plain, impossible to face the flying, panic-stricken hordes, there was nothing for it but to flee straight back over the course they had come. To be overtaken was to be trampled down to earth, ground into fragments and totally destroyed. Oh, the irony of traveling for days and days through a country where the buffalo would have been harmless and then to meet them in the one hour and the one place where they meant death to man! Kenton, recovering himself under the prick of their danger, watched by the lightning flashes for an opening in the sides of the ravine. He soon saw a tiny brook trickling from a cleft. They bolted from the trace and stopped in it. Although it was only a tiny pocket set back and up from the sides of the bluff, it was enough to shelter them and their horse. In less than two minutes the herd came sweeping past below them. All night long, under a stormy sky, they huddled in their covert and saw and heard and smelled the buffalo as they galloped past. All day long, through the clearing weather, they watched more buffalo and more buffalo--walking now. All night long again, under clear skies and brilliant stars, they listened to the stragglers sedately following behind. The man and boy had food in their saddle-bags and water at their feet. The horse drank and helped himself to green stuff. Kenton said: "Give the Injuns followin' the herds time to vamoose. Then we go on. Our folks won't hunt for us, 'cause they think we're wiped out." "If we trail alone, do you suppose the Indians will scalp us--you and me?" quavered Doby. His bright dreams had been to win glory by defeating Indians in open battle. Never at any time had he planned to have them destroy _him_ on the sly. "Think likely--yes," drawled Kenton. "Ye must git used to close calls. I've had 'em many and many a time. Don't wash yer face. That's yer big chance." "Don't wash my face?" repeated Doby. "Don't wash my face!" "The chief marked that paint daub an' set the feathers on ye for some reason. He liked that noisy whistle. 'Tis Injun nature to return a favor. Likely he stalked us when ye drew that pictur'. Blue jays may be his totem." "O-oh!" breathed Doby. "O-oh! Will this mark save me? Will it save you?" "Perhaps. Two guns won't amount to much if there 're Injuns in the ravine or the canebrake. We are in plain sight here; no use to try to hide." They could not stay longer where they were in the cramped little hollow. They must follow the trace. There was no other way out. The doubly loaded horse stepped into the road; but he was uneasy. He snorted and backed about. "Hold your face so the light will strike it. Turn from side to side so the blue in your cap will show," commanded Kenton. Crows on a dead tree above the ravine shrieked something at them. Doby clutched the rein, for the bushes on the opposite bank had parted ever so little. Red of nostril, white of eye, the horse stood still and twitched his sensitive ears.