Joe was acting as sentry at the foot of a tree, with his rifle across his lap, but he paid no attention to Red Wolf when he saw him walking toward the nearest underbrush. "Indian!" he muttered. "Let him rip." "Red Wolf heap look," said he, a few minutes afterwards, as he came out into a place where the trees were widely scattered. A white man might not have seen anything, for all around him was as dark as a pocket, but upon a cloudy gloom above the forest beyond him there rested a faint, yellowish glow. "Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Fire burn." He had brought no weapons with him excepting the knife and pistols in his belt, but he was now armed better than were most Indian boys, and Bowie had promised him a rifle. From tree to tree, keeping among the shadows, on he went, and all the while the glow grew brighter, until at last he could see the flashing of fires and the forms of those around them. "Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Mexican. No Comanche. Heap sleep." In every direction lay the prostrate forms of men. Standing erect or walking hither and thither were a few who might be acting as a night watch. A group of these were gathered at the end of the camp nearest the young scout or spy, and he crept toward them, for they were jabbering loudly in Spanish. They carried weapons, bows and arrows, _escopetas_, or short muskets, _machetes_ of all sorts and sizes, knives, lances, hatchets, clubs. They were not regular soldiers, but their numbers made them sufficiently dangerous. "Eat up Texan," thought Red Wolf. "No catch him. Go back." He went rapidly enough, until Joe, at the foot of his tree, was startled by a hand upon his shoulder. A few swift words told him what was the matter, and the other rangers were at once roughly stirred up. "Do you s'pose, colonel," asked Cheyne, "that we've been followed?" "Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Bowie. "These chaps got their cue from Tetzcatl somehow while we were on the way. He never meant we should find out this thing and get home again. They don't know the secret either. All they know is that we're a squad of Gringos, and that we must be chopped up. Most likely they heard of us to-day, and mean to strike us in the morning. We must git! That's all." "Bully for Red Wolf!" seemed to express the general opinion of the rangers, but the half-rested, half-fed animals were untethered at once. "If it hadn't been for you they'd ha' corralled us," remarked Cheyne to Red Wolf, but all the response he obtained was "Ugh!" "We have everything in our favor," said the colonel, "now we've passed 'em. Such a crowd as that won't stir out early. They'll all lie around and jabber and smoke cigarettes and drink pulque and gamble and boast, and then they'll swarm in to find that we've stolen a march on 'em."