Beverly and I drew close together.  We were in the land of bad Indians, but nothing had happened to us yet, and we could not believe that any danger was near us now, although we were foolishly half hoping that there might be, for the excitement of it.

“There’s no place in a million miles for anybody to hide, Bill.  Where would Jondo’s Indians be?” Beverly asked, as we were getting into camp order for the night.

Beverly’s disposition to demand proof was as strong here as it had been in the matter of rivers turning their courses, and fishes playing leap-frog.

“They might be behind that ridge out north, and have a scout lying flat on the top of old Pawnee Rock, up there, lookin’ benevolently down at us over the rim of his spectacles right now,” Bill replied, as he pulled the corral ropes out of the wagon.

“What makes you think so?” I asked, eagerly.

“What Jondo said about his feeling Indians, I guess, but he reads these prairie trails as easy as Robinson Crusoe read Friday’s footprints in the sand, and he hasn’t read anything in ’em yet.  Indians don’t fight at night, anyhow.  That’s one good thing.  Get hold of that rope, Bev, and pull her up tight,” Bill replied.

Every night our four wagons in camp made a hollow square, with space enough allowed at the corners to enlarge the corral inside for the stock.  These corners were securely roped across from wagon to wagon.  To-night, however, the corral space was reduced and the quartet of vehicles huddled closer together.

At dusk the hot wind came sweeping in from the southwest, a wild, lashing fury, swirling the sand in great spirals from the river bed.  Our fire was put out and the blackness of midnight fell upon us.  The horses were restless and the mules squealed and stamped.  All night the very spirit of fear seemed to fill the air.

Just before daybreak a huge black storm-cloud came boiling up out of the southwest, with a weird yellow band across the sky before it.  Overhead the stars shed a dim light on the shadowy face of the plains.  A sudden whisper thrilled the camp, chilling our hearts within us.

“Indians near!” We all knew it in a flash.

Jondo, on guard, had caught the sign first.  Something creeping across the trail, not a coyote, for it stood upright a moment, then bent again, and was lost in the deep gloom.  Jondo had shifted to another angle of the outlook, had seen it again, and again at a third point.  It was encircling the camp.  Then all of us, except Jondo, began to see moving shapes.  He saw nothing for a long time, and our spirits rose again.

“You must have been mistaken, Jondo,” Rex Krane ventured, as he stared into the black gloom.  “Maybe it was just this infernal wind.  It’s one darned sea-breeze of a zephyr.”

“I’ve crossed the plains before.  I wasn’t mistaken,” the big plainsman replied.  “If I had been, you’d still see it.  The trouble is that it is watching now.  Everybody lay low.  It will come to life again.  I hope there’s only one of it.”