The young man, when everybody had lain down to rest, went the rounds to assure himself that all was in order, and then returned to the fire, when he fell into earnest thought. The whole night passed and he did not make the slightest movement; but he did not sleep, his eyes were open and fixed on the slowly expiring embers. What were the thoughts that contracted his forehead and made his eyebrows meet? It would be impossible to say. Perhaps he was travelling in the country of fancy, dreaming wide awake one of those glorious dreams we have at the age of twenty, which are so intoxicating and so deceitful! Suddenly he started and sprung up as if worked by a spring. At this moment the sun appeared in the horizon, and began slowly dispersing the gloom. The young man bent forward and listened. The sharp snap of a gun being cocked was heard a short distance off, and a sentry concealed in the shrubs shouted in a harsh, sharp voice:-- "Who goes there?" "A friend," was the reply from the bushes. The Jaguar started. "Tranquil here!" he muttered to himself; "For what reason can he seek me?" And he rushed in the direction where he expected to find the Panther-killer. CHAPTER XXII. BLUE-FOX. We will now return to Blue-fox and his two comrades, whom, in a previous chapter, we left at the moment when, after hearing bullets "ping" past their ears, they instinctively entrenched themselves behind rocks and trunks of trees. So soon as they had taken this indispensable precaution against the invisible assailants, the three men carefully inspected their weapons to be ready to reply; and then waited with finger on trigger, and looking searchingly in all directions. They remained thus for a rather lengthened period, though nothing again disturbed the silence of the prairie, or the slightest sign revealed to them that the attack made upon them would be renewed. Suffering from the deepest anxiety, not knowing to what they should attribute this attack, or what enemies they had to fear, the three men knew not what to do, or how to escape with honour from the embarrassing position into which chance had thrown them. At length Blue-fox resolved to go reconnoitring. Still, as the Chief was justly afraid of falling into an ambuscade, carefully prepared to capture him and his comrades, without striking a blow, he thought it prudent, ere he started, to take the most minute precautions.