“Gail, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” I replied, in a half-whisper, as alert as a mystery-loving boy could be.

“Slip over to Jondo and tell him there are Mexicans in town, and I’m going across the river to see what’s up.  Tell him to wake up everybody and have them stay in the wagons till I get back.”

He slid away and the shadows ate him.  I followed as far as Jondo’s wagon, and gave my message.  As I came back something seemed to slip away before me and disappear somewhere.  I dived into our wagon and crouched down, waiting with beating heart for Uncle Esmond to come back.  Once I thought I heard the sound of a horse’s feet on the trail to the eastward, but I was not sure.

All was still and black in the little camp for a long time, and then Esmond Clarenden and Rex Krane crept into the wagon and dropped the flap behind them.

“Krane, have you decided about this trip yet?” Uncle Esmond asked.  “If not, you’d better get right up into town and forget us.  You can’t be too quick about it, either.”

“Ain’t we going to stay here a few days?  Why do you want to know to-night?”

Rex Krane, Yankee-like, met the query with a query.

“Because there’s a pretty strong party of Mexican desperadoes here who are going on east, and they mean trouble for somebody.  I shouldn’t care to meet them with our strength alone.  They are all pretty drunk now and getting wilder every minute.  Listen to that!”

A yell across the river broke the night stillness.

“There is no telling how soon they may be over here, hunting for us.  We must get by them some way, for I cannot risk a fight with them here.  Which chance will you choose, the possibility of being overtaken by that Mexican gang going east, or the perils of the plains and the hostility of New Mexico right now?  It’s about as broad one way as the other for safety, with staying here for a time as the only middle course at present.  But that is a perfectly safe one for you.”

“I am going on with you,” Rex Krane said, with his slow Yankee drawl.  “When danger gets close, then I scatter.  There’s more chance in seven hundred miles to miss somethin’ than there is in a hundred and fifty.  And even a half-invalid might be of some use.  Say, Clarenden, how’d you get hold of this information?  You turned in before I did.”

“Daniel Boone went out on scout duty—­self-elected.  You know she considers that the earth was made for her to walk on when she chooses to use it that way.  She spied trouble ahead and came back, and gave me the key to the west door of Council Grove so I could get out early,” my uncle replied.

“I reckoned as much,” Rex declared.

In the dark I could feel Esmond Clarenden give a start.

“What do you mean?” he inquired.

“Oh, I saw the fat lady start out, so I followed her, but I located the nest of Mexicans before she did, and got a good deal out of their drunken jargon.  And then I cat-footed it back after a snaky-looking, black Spaniard that seemed to be following her.  There were three of us in a row, but the devil hasn’t got the hindmost one, not yet—­that’s me.”