Tad and Chunky remained motionless.

The Indian snored.

The boys waited.  Soon the snores became regular.  The moment for action had arrived.

Tad pinched Chunky.

“Huh!  Wat’cher want?”

The fat boy had in reality been asleep.

“For goodness sake, keep quiet!” begged Tad in a whisper.  “Don’t you know there’s an Indian with a gun guarding us?  He’s asleep.  Come, but be quiet if you value your life at all.  Anyway; remember that I want to save mine.”

Stacy was wide awake now.  Together the lads crawled cautiously away, every nerve on the alert.  Over by the pit of live coals the uproar was, if any thing, louder than before.

The boys gave that part of the camp a wide berth.

“Now get up and run!” commanded Tad.  “Raise your feet off the ground, so that you won’t fall over every pebble you come to.”

Tad and Chunky clasped hands and scurried through the bushes, making as little noise as possible, and rapidly putting considerable distance between them and the sleeping red man who had been set to watch them.

“Having lots of fun, ain’t we, Tad?”

“Fun!  You’re lucky if you get off with a whole scalp—­”

“Wow!” exclaimed Stacy.

The lads brought up suddenly.

At first they were not sure what had disturbed them, that is, Tad was not.  This time Stacy had seen more clearly than his companion.

“Ugh!” grunted a voice right in front of them, and there before their amazed eyes stood an Indian.  To their imaginations, he was magnified until he appeared nearly as tall as the moonlit mountains in the background.

For one hesitating instant the lads stood staring at the figure looming over them.

With an angry growl the red man bounded toward them.  He had recognized the boys and was determined that they should not escape him.

It was Stacy Brown’s wits that saved the situation this time.  As the Indian came at them the fat boy dived between the savage’s naked legs, uttering a short, sharp yelp, for all the world just like that of a small dog attempting to frighten off a bigger antagonist.

There could be only one result following Chunky’s unexpected tactics.  Mr. Redskin flattened himself on the ground prone upon his face.  Somehow the fellow was slightly stunned by the fall, not having had time to save himself from a violent bump on the head.

“Run for it, Chunky!  He’ll be after us in a second.”

The lads made a lively sprint for the open.  In a moment, observing that they were not being followed, they halted, still in the shadows of the bushes.  All at once Tad stumbled over an object in the dark.  At first he thought it was another Indian, and both boys were about to run again, when the voice of the prostrate man caused them to laugh instead.

“Si, si, señor,” muttered the fellow.

“Juan?  It’s Juan!  Get up!  You here yet?”