Read "The Red Track" by Gustave Aimard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The position which the leader of the caravan fancied he had been the first to discover, and where he had made up his mind to halt, was admirably selected to establish an intrenched camp -- strong enough to resist for months the attacks of the Indians and the pirates of the prairies. The immense voladero hovering at a prodigious height above the precipices, and guarded on the right and left by enormous masses of rock, offered such conditions of security that the peons regained all their merry carelessness, and only regarded the mysterious flight of the guide as an accident of no real importance, and which would have no other consequences for them but to make their journey somewhat longer than the time originally arranged.
It was, hence, with well promising ardour that they rose on receiving their chiefs command, and prepared under his directions to dig the trench which was intended to protect them from a surprise. This trench was to be bordered by a line of tall stakes, running across the open space between the rocks, which gave the sole access to the terrace.