It did not need the low growling of the dog to convince our young
friends that they were in the midst of danger.
Along the trail leading up from the ravine, they could hear low,
gutteral voices, and they did not need to be told that the Apaches, whom
they had seen as the sun was setting, had come to the spring, for the
fall of moccasined feet could be heard dying out in that direction.
"The Apaches!" whispered Sam, as he grasped Ulna's arm with one hand,
and clutched his rifle more tightly with the other.
"Yes," was the reply.
"Do you think they will discover us?"
"They cannot help doing so."
"What will be their next move after finding we are near by?"
"They will trail us down."
"To these rocks?"
"Yes."
"And then?"
"And then if they find me they will see that the rising sun looks on one
less Ute in the world," was Ulna's reply, given with his habitual
calmness.
"But we will fight," said Sam, stoutly. "And if it comes to dying, we
will die together, and the enemy will make nothing by it."
"Ha! dey's startin' a fiah down dar by the spring," said Ike, who had
been peering through the darkness in the direction the Apaches had
taken.
This was true. A column of luminous smoke, followed by a fountain of
sparks and flame, shot into the calm night air near the spring.
The Indians were using the fuel Ike and Wah Shin had gathered, and by
the light of the dancing flames their slender, half-naked figures could
be seen.
Sam counted thirteen warriors. All appeared to be well armed with
rifles, and the red paint on their faces told that they were out on no
mission of peace.
"I will go out and try to learn their purpose," said Ulna, as he slung
his rifle on his back, and tightened his belt.
"But they may catch you," said Sam.
"I will see that they don't."
"Can you understand them if you hear them speak?"
"Yes, as well as if they were Utes. It is better that I should go, and
if I find that it will be wiser not to return, remember I shall either
escape to Hurley's Gulch, or stay so close that I can be of service if
needed. But, if it can be avoided, do not bring on a fight with these
people."
Sam was about to protest against Ulna's course, but before he could
utter a word the young Ute had sprung lightly over the rocks, and was
making his way to the spring.
For the first time since leaving Gold Cave Camp Sam Willett felt
thoroughly alarmed.
He had fearlessly faced the storm and stood undaunted in the presence of
Nature in her most awful aspects, without losing heart for a moment, but
the presence of these savages--ignorant and bloodthirsty--made him
tremble for the safety of his dear father, to whose rescue he was
straining every nerve to come.
Ulna's daring and seemingly reckless conduct filled Sam with alarm, for
apart from his great regard for that youth, he knew that he could not
offer a strong resistance to the Apaches with only the inexpert Ike and
Wah Shin to depend on.
"I wouldn't ha' did wat Ulna's done," said Ike, in a frightened whisper.
"No, not for fifty hundred thousand million dollars in goold an' solit
dimeints."
"No catchee dis chile do so much like foolee," said Wah Shin, with a
shudder at the thought.
"Hist! Keep still and stop the dog's growling," said Sam sternly, as
from his perch, higher up, he tried to make out what the Indians were
doing down by the fire, and if possible to discover Ulna.
Meantime Ulna, moving as silently as the shadows that came and went
about the fire near the spring, made his way toward the enemy.
He walked so erect and quickly that it would seem as if it were his
purpose to go directly to the fire, but he took care to keep a rock
between him and the enemy.
When within fifty yards of the spring he dropped on his hands and knees,
and without stopping, crept quickly forward.
When he got so close to the fire that he could distinctly hear what the
Apaches were talking about, he came to a stop, and lying close to the
ground, he bent eagerly forward to listen.
The leader of this band was a man named Blanco, which is the Spanish
word for white, though in this case it seemed to be misapplied.
Blanco's repulsive appearance was increased by the fact that he had only
one eye--like Badger.
The chief and his companions had already discovered that the spring had
been recently visited, and they very naturally inferred from the tracks
of shoes that they had been made by white men.
Nor did the impress of the moccasins escape their keen eyes.
"One Ute, three white men," were the first words Ulna heard when he got
within hearing distance of the Apaches.
"Where did they come from?" asked a brave, who by the aid of a torch had
been examining the tracks lower down the ravine.
"It looks as if they came by way of the Great Canyon," said one.
"Ugh!" grunted Blanco, "I don't believe that."
"But the trail leads that way," persisted the man who held the torch.
"I don't care if it led into the sky."
"If it did, Blanco, you could not see it, and though our medicine-men
say that people in the times far past came from the sky, I never heard
of their bringing dogs with them," said the man with the torch.
"Dogs!" exclaimed the band in chorus.
"No; one dog."
"Where is it?" asked the chief.
"Here is the track," and the man held the torch down and showed the
impress of Maj's feet on the ground.
"No, that's a wolf," said the chief.
"The foot of the mountain wolf is not so large," said the keen observer,
"nor has it long hairs on its toes as has the creature that made this
track."
Like all leaders, the chief did not like to be so openly contradicted by
one under him, and he was again about to protest that he was right, and
it was a wolf that had been at the spring, when, as if to set all doubts
at rest, the fierce barking of a dog could be heard at the top of the
hill and not more than two hundred yards away.
Maj, in some way, had slipped his muzzle and escaped Ike's hold and was
now making himself heard outside the rocks, among which Sam and his
friends were hiding.
The instant the Indians heard the sound they seized their arms and
sprang away from the light of the fire.
As luck, rather than design, had it, they ran in the direction where
Ulna was hiding, and before he could think of rising to his feet they
were about him.
The brave fellow stuck close to the ground, and he might have escaped
had not one of the Apaches stumbled and fell on top of him.
The savage gave a yell of fear, but at the same instant he seized Ulna
and held him fast.
"What is wrong there?" demanded the chief, as he hurried in the
direction from which the cry came.
"A Ute! a Ute!" was the response of the man whom Ulna was making a
desperate effort to cast off.
In an instant every brave had fallen on Ulna, and, almost as quickly, he
was bound hand and foot, but he uttered neither cry nor groan to show
the pain nor to tell of his mental anguish.
"Who are you?" asked Blanco, bending over him.
"I am a Ute," was the reply.
"Have you a name?"
"I have."
"What is it?"
"Ulna."
"What! the nephew of the hated Uray?"
"The nephew of the great chief, Uray."
"You come alone?"
"No, with friends."
"Utes?"
"No, miners from Gold Cave Camp."
"How came you here?"
"Through the canyon."
"And you want me to believe that?"
"I ask you to believe nothing; I tell the truth," said Ulna proudly and
half-defiantly.
"Who ever went through the Great Canyon and lived?" said the Apache in a
calmer tone.
"We have," said Ulna.
"How many of you?"
"Four and a dog."
"And where are the others?"
"They are where they can defy a foe or welcome a friend," said Ulna with
undaunted spirit.