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Davy must have dropped off to sleep, in spite of himself; because suddenly he was aroused by the squaws sitting up and jabbering. Had morning come? The plains yonder were light. No; that was fire! The Cheyennes, just as they had planned, had set the grass afire, to windward of the mule fort. While Davy, too, sat up, his heart beating wildly, the fire seemed to be sweeping right toward the fort. Behind the line of flames and smoke he could see the dark figures of the Indians fanning with blankets and robes, to make the line move faster and fiercer.

“Humph! A poor fire,” grunted one of the squaws. “Grass too short.”

“Yes. But it makes a smoke, so the men can charge up close,” answered the other.

That, then, was the scheme, if the fire itself did not amount to much. Some of the dark figures behind the line of fire fanned; others were stealing forward, into the smoke itself. The moment was exciting. The smoke was drifting across the fort; would the two men and the boy suspect that the Indians were following it in?