Beyond the Indian lodges, and a little higher up the gentle slope of the savanna, were the troop shelters; and beyond these, half concealed in the fringing of the boundary forest, was the tepee-lodge of the women. On the bare hillside beneath the powder magazine I made no doubt I was in plainest view from the great fire, and the proof of this conclusion came shortly in a bellowing hail from Falconnet. "Ho, Jack Warden!" he called, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands to lift the hail above the chanting of the Indian dancers. "Have a look at that shelter whilst you are over there and make sure 'twill shed rain if the weather shifts." Now some such long-range marking down as this was what I had been angling for. So I came to attention and saluted in soldierly fashion, thereby raising a great laugh among my pseudo-comrades around the trooper fire--a laugh that pointed shrewdly to the baronet-captain's lack of proper discipline. But that is neither here nor there. Having my master's order for it, I climbed to the foot of the powder rock. Here the bare sight of all the stored-up devastation set me athirst with a fierce longing for leave to snap a pistol in the well-laid mine. For if these enemies of ours had planned their own undoing they could never have given a desperate foeman a better chance. To hold the pine boughs of the rude shelter in place they had piled a great loose wall of stones around and over the cargo; and the firing of the powder, heaped as it was against the backing cliff of the boulder, would hurl these weighting stones in a murderous broadside upon the camp across the stream. But since my dear lady would also share the hazard of such a broadside, I had no leave to blow myself and the powder convoy to kingdom come, as I thirsted to--could not, you will say, having neither pistol to snap nor flint and steel to fire a train. Nay, nay, my dears, I would not have you think so lightly of my invention. Had this been the only obstacle, you may be sure I should have found a way to grind a firing spark out of two bits of stone. But being otherwise enjoined, as I say, I turned my back upon the temptation and held to the business in hand, which was to reach and recross the stream higher up and so to come among the horses. As I had hoped to find them, the saddles were hung upon the branches of the nearest trees, Margery's horse-furnishings among them. At first the black mare was shy of me, but a gentling word or two won her over, and she let me take her by the forelock and lead her deeper into the herd where I could saddle and bridle her in greater safety.