Darkness had descended when he reached his chosen spot, and wrapping the blanket around him he sat down cross-legged, laid his rifle near him, and leaned back against a rock to watch the trail and wait for daylight. Faint, long-drawn, quavering, came the howl of a wolf, and from a point below him in the blackness of the canyon a cougar screamed defiance. He was surprised by the clearness with which occasional sounds came up to him, for he distinctly heard the crack of dead wood where some careless foot trod, and he heard a voice ask who had the second shift on the south side of the butte. "Turn in," came the answer. "We ain't watchin' that side no more. You relieve me at midnight, an' don't forget it!" For some time he had been hearing strange, dragging sounds which seemed to come from the foot of the trail; and had been fooled into believing that an attack was under way. Then several low crashes gave him the distance, and he again leaned back against the rock, slipping the Colt into its holster. A tiny point of light sprang up in the darkness, whisked behind a bowlder as he reached for his rifle, and grew rapidly brighter. Then it soared into the air and curved toward the foot of the trail, and almost instantly became a great, leaping flame which soon lit up the trail, the towering walls of the buttes, and the glistening bowlders in the canyon. He stared at it and then laughed. "They ain't satisfied with watchin' th' trail an' listenin' with both ears, but they has to light it up! There ain't no danger whatever of me tryin' to get down now; an' I'd like to see anybody try to get up it while that fire's burnin'! They're shore kind to me." "You be careful an' keep it out of th' brush," warned a faint voice. "If she catches, this canyon will be a little piece of h--l. Everythln's so dry it rustles." "Ain't you turned in yet?" demanded the guard. "You never mind about th' fire. You get to sleep; an' you get awake again at twelve." "Huh!" came the laughing retort. "We can _all_ go to sleep while _that's_ blazin'. Go gnaw yore bone an' quit growlin'." Johnny laughed loudly, derisively. "I may set it on fire myself!" he jeered. "An' if I don't, th' rainy season is purty near due--an' when it comes you'll need a boat. Fine lot of man-hunters you are. All you can shoot is boots an' skunks!" A flash split the darkness, and the canyon tossed the report from side to side as though loath to let it die. When the reverberations softened to a rolling mutter he jeered the marksman and called him impolite names. The angry retort was quite as discourteous and pleased him greatly.