There was something else to do besides dream. Because the girl had spoken pleasantly was no reason why he should act the fool. Angry at himself, he gripped his faculties, and faced the situation, aroused, intent. He must save himself--and her! But how? What plan promised any possibility of success? He had their surroundings in a map before his eyes. His training had taught him to note and remember what others would as naturally neglect. He was a soldier of experience, a plainsman by long training, and even in the fierceness of the Indians' attack on the stage his quick glance had completely visualized their surroundings. He had not appreciated this at the time, but now the topography of the immediate region was unrolled before him in detail; yard by yard it reappeared as though photographed. He saw the widely rutted trail, rounding the bluff at the right a hundred yards away, curving sharply down the slope and then disappearing over the low hill to the left, a slight stream trickling along its base. Below, the short buffalo-grass, sunburned and brittle, ran to the sandy edge of the river, which flowed silently in a broad, shallow, yellow flood beneath the star gleam. Under the protection of that bank, but somewhat to the left, where a handful of stunted cottonwood trees had found precarious foothold in the sand, gleamed the solitary Indian fire. About its embers, no doubt, squatted the chiefs and older warriors, feasting and taking council, while the younger bucks lay, rifles in hand, along the night-enshrouded slope, their cruel, vengeful eyes seeking to distinguish the outlines of the coach against the black curtain of the bluff.
This had proven thus far their salvation--that steep uplift of earth against which the stage had crashed in its mad dash--for its precipitant front had compelled the savages to attack from one direction only, a slight overhang, not unlike a roof, making it impossible even to shoot down from above. But this same sharp incline was now likewise a preventive of escape. Hamlin shook his head as he recalled to mind its steep ascent, without root or shrub to cling to. No, it would never do to attempt that; not with her. Perhaps alone he might scramble up somehow, but with her the feat would be impossible. He dismissed this as hopeless, his memory of their surroundings drifting from point to point aimlessly. He saw the whole barren vista as it last stood revealed under the glow of the sun--the desolate plateau above, stretching away into the dim north, the brown level of the plains, broken only by sharp fissures In the surface, treeless, extending for unnumbered leagues. To east and west the valley, now scarcely more green than those upper plains, bounded by its verdureless bluffs, ran crookedly, following the river course, its only sign of white dominion the rutted trail. Beyond the stream there extended miles of white sand-dunes, fantastically shapen by the wind, gradually changing into barren plains of alkali. Between crouched the vigilant Indian sentinels, alert and revengeful.