It is not often that an Indian can be taken off the guard.  Years of danger have made the senses of the savages preternaturally acute, and they are as distant as the timid antelope of the plains.  But, for all that, there was a boy within a dozen yards of a swarthy warrior whose senses were on the alert, and yet had failed to detect his proximity.

Fred gazed upon him with the fixed intensity of the jungle tiger stealing upon his prey.  With his right hand resting upon the hilt of his revolver, he never removed his eyes from the muscular figure of the Apache, bending over the entrance to the cavern.

“Shall I shoot, or push him over?”

[Illustration:  “Shall I shoot or push him over?”]

This was the question the lad kept revolving in his mind, as he advanced step by step.  With the pistol he could bury two or three balls in the body of the redskin before he could suspect where they came from, and thus completely clear the path before him.  But there were doubts in the way.  The revolver might miss fire, in which case all hope would be gone.  In a hand-to-hand tussle the Apache would be more than a match for a dozen such lads.  True, the weapon had not failed when he pulled the trigger in the cave, but there was no certainty that it would not do so when he most needed it.

Then, too, he felt a natural repugnance against stealing upon a foe in this fashion, and shooting him in the back.  It had a cowardly look, even when certain that the threatened party would have done precisely the same thing, had the opportunity come in his way.

“I will push him over, if he don’t make me shoot him.”

But to do this necessitated a much closer approach.  He must literally be within “striking distance.”  Could he place himself there without discovery?  If the redskin were asleep, or if his mind was occupied with something of a different nature, or if there were some extraneous noise, the case would be different.  The blowing of the wind, the murmur of a waterfall (such as Fred had heard when lying upon the ground in the same spot) would have been a most fortunate diversion.  But there was nothing of the kind.  There was a dead calm, not a breath of air stirring, and the day was hot.

Fred had approached within twenty feet, and still the Apache did not stir.  How vivid and indelibly his appearance was impressed upon the vision of the boy!  He could never forget it.  The redskin, although of powerful build, was anything but pleasing in appearance, even when viewed from the rear.