So long as he stood erect, with his back against the side of the dwelling, he was invisible to anyone who was not almost upon him. Retaining this posture, and with the rear of his clothing brushing against the building, he glided softly to the right until he reached the corner. At the moment he arrived there, he saw that the horseman had slipped from his mustang, and he and the other warrior approached close to the door, where, as it will be remembered, Captain Shirril heard them talking together in low tones. This was altogether too near for comfort, and Avon, with the same noiseless movement, slipped beyond the corner of the house. As he did so, he felt for an instant that all was over. An Indian brushed so near that the youth could have touched him by extending his hand. How he escaped discovery was more than he could understand. It must have been that the warrior's attention was so fixed upon the two figures at the front of the house that he did not glance to the right or left. Even such an explanation hardly makes clear the oversight on the part of one belonging to a race proverbial for its alertness and keen vision. Before the young man recovered from his shock, he was astounded by another occurrence a hundred-fold more inexplicable. The profound stillness was suddenly broken by the ringing report of a rifle on the other side of the building, accompanied by the wild cry which caused the listening Captain Shirril and his wife to believe it meant the death of their devoted nephew. While the captain committed a grave mistake, for which he was excusable, Avon was equally at fault, and with as good if not a better reason. Not dreaming it possible that he could have a friend near the cabin and on the outside, he supposed the shot was fired by the captain to create a diversion in his favor. While such, as the reader knows, was not the case, yet it served that commendable purpose. The death-shriek of the stricken Comanche was still in the air, when, assuming a crouching posture, the youth made a dash for cover. He expected every moment that other rifles would be fired and he would be headed off. He could hardly understand it, therefore, when he felt the bushes strike his face, and he knew that he was among the mesquite, without suffering harm. He would have continued his flight, had not the sounds in front shown that while he had been wonderfully fortunate up to this point, he had run almost into a group of his enemies. The dense shadows of the bushes prevented him from seeing them, else they assuredly would have observed him, but, determined to go forward now at all hazards, and eager to seize the flimsiest thread of hope, he sank down on his hands and knees, anxious to continue his flight, but waiting to learn in what direction it should be made, if indeed it could be made at all.