A brawny Indian warrior was stooped over and nursing a small flame with the utmost care. How he had managed the difficult business thus far without detection from below, was almost beyond explanation. But it followed, from what has been told, that he had climbed upon the roof, taking with him some twigs and bits of wood, without having been heard by Captain Shirril, who was listening intently at the lower door, and who heard more than one other noise that must have been slighter than that overhead. It was probable that the warrior, having made his preparations, rode his horse close to the further corner of the cabin, where he stopped the animal, and rose to the upright position on his back. The roof was so low that it could be easily reached in this way, and he was so far removed from the inmates that his action escaped notice, his presence being finally discovered in the manner described. Finding he could not open the scuttle, he had crept over the peak of the roof, stooped down, and, gathering his combustibles with care, set fire to them. In doing this, he must have used the common lucifer match of civilization, since no other means would have answered, and the American Indian of the border is as quick to appropriate the conveniences as he is to adopt the vices of the white man. Be that as it may, he had succeeded in starting the tiny fire, and, at the moment the wrathful Dinah caught sight of him, was placing several larger sticks upon the growing flame, and, bending over, was striving to help the natural wind by blowing upon the blaze. The picture was a striking one. The glow of the flame showed the countenance of the Comanche plainly. His features were repellent, the nose being Roman in form, while the cheek-bones were protuberant and the chin retreating. His long black hair dangled about his shoulders, and was parted, as is the custom among his people, in the middle. The face was rendered more repulsive by the stripes and splashes of yellow, white, and red paint, which not only covered it from the top of the forehead to the neck, but was mixed in the coarse hair, a portion of whose ends rested on the roof, as well as over his back. As he blew, his cheeks expanded, his thin lips took the form of the letter O, fringed with radiating wrinkles around the edges, and the black eyes seemed to glow with a light like that of the fire itself, so great was his earnestness in his work. No country boy accustomed to get up on cold mornings and build the family fires could have done his work better. He saw that while the sticks which were burning, and which he continued to feed and fan, were rapidly consuming and growing, they were eating into the dry roof on which they rested. They had already burned a considerable cavity, which gleamed like a living coal, and it would not take long before a hold would be secured that would throw the whole structure into a blaze.