He must have turned the matter over pretty thoroughly in his mind, for when the two reached camp he had his ideas fixed and his plans all perfected. He told Luck that somebody was working down the draw in the dark, and that it looked like a Navvy trick; and that they had better be ready for them, because they weren't coming just to pass the time of day--“now I'm tellin' ye!” The nerves of the Happy Family were raw enough by now to welcome anything that promised action; even an Indian fight would not be so much a disaster as a novel way of breaking the monotony. Applehead, with the experience gathered in the old days when he was a young fellow with a freighting outfit and old Geronimo was terrorizing all this country, sent them back in compact half circle just within the shelter of the trees and several rods away from their campfire and the waterhole. There, lying crouched behind their saddles with their rifles across the seat-sides and with ammunition belts full of cartridges, they waited for whatever might be coming in the dark. “It's horses,” Pink exclaimed under his breath, as faint sounds came down the draw. “Maybe--” “Horses--and an Injun laying along the back of every one, most likely,” Applehead returned grimly. “An old Navvy trick, that is--don't let 'em fool ye, boys! You jest wait, 'n' I'll tell ye 'when t' shoot, er whether t' shoot at all. They can't fool ME--now I'm tellin' yuh!” After that they were silent, listening strainedly to the growing sounds of approach. There was the dull, unmistakable click of a hoof striking against a rock, the softer sound of treading on yielding soil. Then a blur of dark objects became visible, moving slowly and steadily toward the camp. “Aw, it's just horses,” Happy Jack muttered disgustedly. Applehead stretched a lean leg in his direction and gave Happy Jack a kick. “They're cunnin',” he hissed warningly. “Don't yuh be fooled--” “That's Johnny in the lead,” Pink whispered excitedly. “I'd know the way he walks--” “'N' you THOUGHT yuh knowed how he jingled his dang bell,” Applehead retorted unkindly. “Sh-sh-sh--” Reminded by the taunt of the clever trick that had been played upon them the night before, the Happy Family stiffened again into strained, waiting silence, their rifles aimed straight at the advancing objects. These, still vague in the first real darkness of early night, moved steadily in a scattered group behind a leader that was undoubtedly Johnny of the erstwhile tinkling bell. He circled the campfire just without its radius of light, so that they could not tell whether an Indian lay along his back, and beaded straight for the water-hole. The others followed him, and not one came into the firelight--a detail which sharpened the suspicions of the men crouched there in the edge of the bushes, and tingled their nerves with the sense of something sinister in the very unconcernedness of the animals.