Back and forth among the shadows bounded and dodged the ill-matched combatants. Red Wolf had no shield, and his knife glanced more than once from the smooth, hard bison-hide of his opponent's round buckler. "Ugh!" screeched the Comanche at the end of a terrific minute, and he sank into the grass. [Illustration: "UGH!" SCREECHED THE COMANCHE ... AND HE SANK INTO THE GRASS] He had done his best, all the while failing, but now the end had come, and Red Wolf shortly walked back after the horses. His own mustang was led out of the hollow, the Comanche pony, a fine one, was taken possession of, with his late owner's weapons and ornaments and the much-prized trophy of victory. "More Comanche come pretty soon," he exclaimed. "Red Wolf take hair. Tell Big Knife. Tell Castro. Who-op!" Never before had he sounded so loudly, so triumphantly, the war-cry of his tribe, but the whoops which answered him did not come from the direction of the camp. They arose from the northward and told of many whoopers. As for the scouting-party, if any of them had turned back to assist their comrade at the sink-hole, they as yet were silent. So was Red Wolf now, as he galloped away into the darkness. The camp was too far away for even a death-whoop to reach it, but Colonel Bowie's tour of guard duty had led him out at last to a tuft of sumach-bushes, beyond the easterly border of the grove. Here he stood, looking out somewhat listlessly, but before long he uttered a low, sharp exclamation, and brought his rifle to his shoulder. "They've come!" he said. "I must rouse the boys. It's life or death this time. How they tracked us here I don't know." As he glanced along the rifle-barrel he could see dim forms on horseback glide between him and the starlit horizon. They were at no great distance, and he turned to send into the camp a piercing whistle. It reached the ear of every ranger, asleep or awake. Even the horses seemed to understand that it was a note of alarm, and they began to step around as if they were in a hurry to get their saddles on. They need not have been in any anxiety, for when the men sprang to their feet, rifles in hand, their first care was for their four-footed comrades. An immediate reply to Bowie's whistle came also from away out on the prairie. "That's the warning whoop of the Lipans," he said to his men. "Red Wolf is out there somewhere. Hope they won't get him. He shouldn't ha' whooped." But Red Wolf had not been unwise, after all. The Comanche scouts were few in number and they had no desire to be caught between two fires, Lipans, if there were any, on one side, and the riflemen on the other. They therefore dashed ahead, and then nearer, louder than before, the Lipan yell sounded again. "That's a startler!" exclaimed Bowie. "It isn't the boy! It's a grown-up screech." Another of the full-sized startlers came, and a third, a fourth.