The shadows were gone, merged into the dusk which was rapidly settling over the plateau, and he had to wait only a little longer to be covered by darkness; but he preferred to do his waiting at a point distant from a snakes' den. Creeping along the edge of the bowlder pile, alert both for snakes and rustlers, he at last reached the southern end and stopped suddenly. A leather-covered leg was disappearing around a dense thicket, and he darted to the shelter of a gully to wait until darkness would hide him on his return to camp. CHAPTER XVII TREED Johnny awakened at the shot and softly rolled out of his blanket. The fire was nearly out, but an occasional burst of flame from the end of the last stick served to show him the outlines of the little tent and the glistening hobnails in the soles of the protruding boots. A bush stirred and a careless step snapped a twig with a report startlingly loud in the night. A voice some distance behind him called out to a figure which appeared like a ghost upon the edge of the little clearing. "Get him, Purdy?" Boots scraped on stone at his right and another voice raised out of the dark. "If he didn't, there'd be some cussed rapid shootin' about now!" "Course I got him!" snorted Purdy. Johnny cautiously backed out of the thicket while the men behind him crashed through the brush and swore at the density of the growth. The man at the end of the clearing stopped and stood quietly regarding the vague boots, his rifle at the ready. Somehow he did not feel that everything was as it should be. The boots appeared to be in the same position as when he had espied them a moment before. He must have made a lucky brain or heart shot, or--. He raised his hand swiftly and backed into the oak brush again, where Mexican locust in the high grass stabbed him mercilessly. Again his rifle spoke. The boots did not move. "You got him th' first time," laughed Fleming, walking rapidly toward the tent; but he was not confident enough in his claim to put up his Colt. "Shore," endorsed Holbrook. "It was good judgment, an' good luck." Fleming, Colt ready, leaned swiftly over, grasped a boot and gave a strong pull--and went down on his back, the Colt exploding and flying one way while the boot, showering pebbles and small bits of rock, soared aloft and went the other way. "D--n him!" swore Purdy, diving back into the brush and giving no thought to the thorns. "Cover, fellers! Quick!" he cried. His warning was hardly needed, for Holbrook had dived headfirst into a matted thicket and landed on some locust with but little more that passing knowledge of its presence. Fleming bounded to his feet, scooped up his Colt on the run and jumped into another thicket, unmindful at first of the peculiar odor which assailed his nostrils. He had no time, then, to think about skunks, or whether or not they were hydrophobic.