Rex Krane gave a long whistle.

“I believe Bill is trying to scare him, Bev,” I murmured.

“I believe he’s just precious wasting time,” Beverly replied.

“And so,” Bill continued, “it came to be a sort of rock of execution where romances end and they die happily ever afterward.  The Indians get up there and, being able to read fine print with ease as far away as either seacoast, they can watch any wagon-train from the time it leaves Council Grove over east to Bent’s Fort on the Purgatoire Creek out west; and having counted the number of men, and the number of bullets in each man’s pouch, they slip down and jump on the train as it goes by.  If the men can make it to beat them to the top of the rock, as they do sometimes, they can keep the critters off, unless the Indians are strong enough to keep them up there and sit around and wait till they starve for water, and have to come down.  It’s a grim old fortress, and never needs a garrison.  Indians or white men up there, sometimes they defend and sometimes attack.  But it’s a bad place always, and on account of having our little girl along—­” Bill paused.  “A fellow gets to see a lot of country out here,” he added.

“Banney, just why didn’t you join the army?  You’d have a chance to see a lot more of the country, if this Mexican War goes on,” Rex Krane said, meditatively.

“I’d rather be my own captain and order myself to the front, and likewise command my rear-guard to retire, whenever I doggone please,” Bill said.  “It isn’t the soldiers that’ll do this country the most good.  They are useful enough when they are useful, Lord knows.  And we’ll always need a decent few of ’em around to look after women and children, and invalids,” he went on.  “I tell you, Krane, it’s men like Clarenden that’s going to make these prairies worth something one of these days.  The men who build up business, not them that shoot and run to or from.  That’s what the West’s got to have.  I’m through going crazy about army folks.  One man that buys and sells, if he gives good weight and measure, is, himself, a whole regiment for civilization.”

Just then Jondo halted the train, and we gathered about him.

“Clarenden, let’s pitch camp at the rock.  The horses are dead tired and this wind is making them nervous.  There’s a storm due as soon as it lays a bit, and we would be sort of protected here.  A tornado’s a giant out in this country, you know.”

“This tavern doesn’t have a very good name with the traveling public, does it, Clarenden?” Rex Krane suggested.

“Not very,” my uncle replied.  “But in case of trouble, the top of it isn’t a bad place to shoot from.”

“What if the other fellow gets there first?” Bill Banney inquired.

“We can run from here as easily as any other place,” Jondo assured us.  “I haven’t seen a sign of Indians yet.  But we’ve got to be careful.  This point has a bad reputation, and I naturally begin to feel Indians in the air as soon as I come in sight of it.  If we need the law of the trail anywhere, we need it here,” he admonished.