Billy rose and walked boldly inside.  If he could see no one within, then no one could see him once he was inside the door.  Therefore, so reasoned Billy Byrne, he would have as good a chance as the occupants of the hut, should they prove to be enemies.

He crossed the floor carefully, stopping often to listen.  At last he heard a rustling sound just ahead of him.  His fingers tightened upon the revolver he carried in his right hand, by the barrel, clublike.  Billy had no intention of making any more noise than necessary.

Again he heard a sound from the same direction.  It was not at all unlike the frightened gasp of a woman.  Billy emitted a low growl, in fair imitation of a prowling dog that has been disturbed.

Again the gasp, and a low:  “Go away!” in liquid feminine tones—­and in English!

Billy uttered a low:  “S-s-sh!” and tiptoed closer.  Extending his hands they presently came in contact with a human body which shrank from him with another smothered cry.

“Barbara!” whispered Billy, bending closer.

A hand reached out through the darkness, found him, and closed upon his sleeve.

“Who are you?” asked a low voice.

“Billy,” he replied.  “Are you alone in here?”

“No, an old woman guards me,” replied the girl, and at the same time they both heard a movement close at hand, and something scurried past them to be silhouetted for an instant against the path of lesser darkness which marked the location of the doorway.

“There she goes!” cried Barbara.  “She heard you and she has gone for help.”

“Then come!” said Billy, seizing the girl’s arm and dragging her to her feet; but they had scarce crossed half the distance to the doorway when the cries of the old woman without warned them that the camp was being aroused.

Billy thrust a revolver into Barbara’s hand.  “We gotta make a fight of it, little girl,” he said.  “But you’d better die than be here alone.”

As they emerged from the hut they saw warriors running from every doorway.  The old woman stood screaming in Piman at the top of her lungs.  Billy, keeping Barbara in front of him that he might shield her body with his own, turned directly out of the village.  He did not fire at first hoping that they might elude detection and thus not draw the fire of the Indians upon them; but he was doomed to disappointment, and they had taken scarcely a dozen steps when a rifle spoke above the noise of human voices and a bullet whizzed past them.

Then Billy replied, and Barbara, too, from just behind his shoulder.  Together they backed away toward the shadow of the trees beyond the village and as they went they poured shot after shot into the village.

The Indians, but just awakened and still half stupid from sleep, did not know but that they were attacked by a vastly superior force, and this fear held them in check for several minutes—­long enough for Billy and Barbara to reach the summit of the bluff from which Billy and Eddie had first been fired upon.