"Lie low till you see a good opportunity. I think the chap'll come out." "But suppose he doesn't?" "You'll have to stay here, that's all. I'll divide the watch with you." "Oh, I don't like to ask you to do that, old man. We ought to be able to think up some kind of a scheme." The sun was fast declining. Soon it disappeared behind the river-bluffs, when the boom of the evening-gun swelled the last note of "retreat." Fraser sighed. The trumpet had suggested a certain dire possibility. "I don't care for the cold," he declared, "but--but"--ruefully--"do you suppose the K. O.'ll give me more than a month in quarters for this? There's that dance at the Major's next week; I'd like awfully to go. If I'm under arrest, I can't. And who'll feed my horse and my rattlesnakes!" "Some sassy sergeant'll shoot your fiend of a nag," said the storekeeper, "and the rattlers'll be requested to devour one another. When that's over, I'll break it gently to you (and you must be mum) that the K. O. is disciplining you simply to keep his face. He knows--suggested it himself--that I'm to be helped out by some of you fellows." "Well, that's better!" returned Fraser, relieved. And while they walked back and forth, he launched into a defence of his pets. "'Fiend of a nag,'" he quoted. "Why, Buckskin's a tactician; knows what the trumpet says better than I do." Night settled swiftly. Despite Lounsbury's prophecy, the temperature was not unbearable. The wind died with the glow in the west, leaving the air so still that, to the watchers among the trees, sounds from Brannon mingled distinctly with the near laughter and talk of Shanty Town. No moon rose. Only a few stars burned their faint way through the quickly hidden rents of the sheltering cloud-covering that, knitting here, breaking there, again, overlapping in soft folds before an urgent sky breeze, swagged low above the ground. With darkness, the two left the grove for the ledge upon which was Shanty Town, and stationed themselves where they could still see whoever went in or out of The Trooper's Delight. Matthews did not appear. Numerous men in uniform did. They made noisy exits, and went brawling along to other shanties; they skulked out of the willows, flitted across the bit of snow-crusted beach below the saloons, and scrambled up to hurry in. When two hours or more had gone by, the storekeeper grew impatient. He walked back and halted in the inky shadow of the wall down which Nick Matthews had tobogganed. From there, he pointed to a shaft of light that was falling upon the north side of the second shanty in the street. It was from an uncurtained, south opening in the first. "You see that?" asked Lounsbury. "Well, I'm going over there to look in. How do we know he hasn't given us the slip, someway?" "Let's be careful," said the lieutenant. "A proper amount of caution isn't cowardice. If you're seen, the whole pack'll set on you." "I _will_ be careful, but I'm not going to----"