As Steve walked away with Red Wolf, Many Bears at once turned his
attention to Murray, and the great affairs to be decided by the chiefs
and councillors.
The chiefs and warriors whose fame and rank entitled them to such a
privilege soon gathered for the expected "talk."
Murray found himself regarded as an honored guest. Not only were his
hosts indebted to him for past favors, but they were anxiously expecting
more.
At first he merely listened as brave after brave replied to the mention
of his name. He saw that only the very gray-headed men had anything to
say in favor of peaceful action, and a prompt "getting away."
He was even surprised at the ardor with which many of the warriors
declared their eagerness for a blow at the Lipans, and the good reasons
they were able to give.
The presence of the band of Two Knives was a sort of invasion of the
Apache hunting grounds.
The Lipans had no business this side of the mountains. They had come to
strike the Apaches, and if they should be allowed to get away unhurt,
they would surely come again.
Send Warning had already told how many there were of them. If there were
no more than that, none of them ought to be allowed to get away.
Murray could but think that a party of Apaches in the Lipan country
would probably be talked about and dealt with very much in the same way,
but it seemed to require a special effort for him to think at all.
His head had been in a sort of whirl for some minutes before the time
when Many Bears turned suddenly upon him with the question:
"What Send Warning say? His head is very white."
Murray was muttering to himself at the moment, while Dolores handed her
husband a stick with a piece of corn bread on the point of it. "She is
not an Apache. She is a full-blooded Mexican. Yes, I've seen that woman
before."
But the chief's inquiry startled him out of that train of recollection.
He could not have answered instantly to save his life, but it was
according to Indian notions that he should not speak too quickly, so he
had time to recover himself.
"More enemies besides Lipans," he said at length. "Apaches better not
forget pale-face miners."
"Ugh!"
The exclamation went all around the circle, for that was the very thing
none of them had thought of.
"Pale-faces fight Lipans," remarked Many Bears.
"Is the great chief sure of that?" asked Murray. "Suppose they come all
together. Apaches need more braves then. Suppose they fight each other
first, then Apaches eat up all that are left. Great chief better find
out."
"Ugh!"
It was a very loud grunt indeed to come from the throat of Many Bears,
and the chiefs and braves looked at one another in a way that spoke a
good deal for the value they set on the advice of their white friend.
Whipping sixty Lipans was one thing, attacking them with a strong force
of pale-face riflemen to help them was quite another.
"What Send Warning say do?"
"Do?" almost sharply exclaimed Murray, with his eyes upon the retreating
form of Mother Dolores. "I'll tell you. Send your whole camp across the
river. They can surround it here. Then send out your best braves to
watch for the Lipans. They'll attack you before morning. That's what
they came for. They won't fight the miners."
He was partly right and partly wrong, but Many Bears and his chiefs rose
to their feet as one man.
"The words of Send Warning are wise. He is very old, and he is a chief.
No use talk any more. All braves go and eat a heap. Tell squaws bring up
all ponies. Get ready to cross river. No lose time."
Murray was not a "general," and he had never studied war, but he knew it
would be a good thing to have deep water between that camp and any
assailants, instead of behind it. Many Bears was a chief of great
experience, but it had never occurred to him that it would cost him all
his horses if he should be beaten in a fight with a river behind him.
The blunder was to be remedied now with a rapidity which astonished even
Murray, for he had not known how good a ford there was right there.
"Hope the Lipans won't find that out," he said to himself. "They'll
think twice before they try to swim their horses. I've given these
fellows good advice. May prevent a battle. But if one should come, how
could I fight the Lipans? What am I doing in an Apache camp anyhow?
Steve and I must make haste out of this." And then a puzzled, pained,
anxious look came over his wrinkled face, and he seemed to be looking
around him very wistfully indeed, as if he wanted to see somebody. "Not
to-night, perhaps; but I'll see her again in the morning. Steve and I
must get away to-morrow. It'll be easy enough to give him his
directions, and I can find Two Knives and his braves in a few hours."
As the deepening gloom of the evening settled slowly down, he stood
beside Many Bears on the bank of the river, and watched the young braves
drive in the last squads of ponies from their pasturage, and urge them
across the ford. He had no idea how much quiet fun Steve and his friend
Red Wolf had already enjoyed. The squaws had insisted upon making all
the boys and girls who were big enough swim instead of going over on
pony-back, and the youngsters, in their turn, had revenged themselves by
all the mischievous pranks they knew.
If talk could have raised the river, the chatter of nearly two hundred
squaws of all ages, added to the scolding of Too Many Toes, would have
made a torrent of it. And yet a number of the squaws, wives and
daughters of men of character and station, attended to the business of
fording the stream with the silence and gravity of the most dignified
white matrons. Dolores would have scorned putting herself on a level
with such a squaw as Too Many Toes even in the use of her tongue, and as
for Ni-ha-be and Rita, they never forgot to whose family they belonged.
"Rita," said Ni-ha-be, as they rode down to the river, "your blanket is
loose. Red Wolf and Knotted Cord are watching us."
"Send Warning is not there."
"No, of course not. He is with the chiefs. Don't let them see we are
looking at them."
[Illustration: "IN AN INSTANT SHE WAS FLOUNDERING IN THE RIVER."]
Ni-ha-be had better have been attending to the feet of her own pretty
mustang. The ford was not very wide just there, and the two girls were
compelled to get a little out of the way of two mules loaded with lodge
poles. Alas for the vanity of the chief's self-confident daughter! Her
horse's fore-feet went over the ledge, and in an instant more she was
floundering in the river, while every squaw and young Indian who could
see her broke out into merry laughter. It was well, perhaps, that she
slipped from the ford on the up-stream side; but she did not need a bit
of help from anybody. No Apache girl of her age ever needed to be taught
to swim. In a moment she had caught her mustang by the head, turned it
to the ledge, and found her own footing on the rock, from which position
she encouraged the unlucky quadruped to follow.
Thus, although the water was at her shoulders, she managed, all dripping
as she was, to clamber into the saddle again. It was so dreadfully
provoking, though, and she had certainly heard Red Wolf laugh.
It had been the chief's order that the lodges should be set up on the
safe side of the ford, and so there was work enough before the squaws.
Even some of the younger braves were called upon to lend a hand, and in
less than an hour's time there was a very respectable Indian village.
Lodges, ponies, fires, dogs, everything belonging to an Apache hunting
camp was there, and between them and any probable danger the river was
rolling now, and the Lipans did not know where to look for the ford.
"Ni-ha-be," exclaimed Dolores, sharply, a little later, "go into lodge.
Too late for young squaw. What will the great chief say?"
"It is early yet."
"Go in. Lipans come and carry you off. Old pale-face see you, and say
foolish young squaw. Not know enough to keep dry. Fall off pony. Ugh!"
That was a sharp hit, and Ni-ha-be obeyed Dolores rather than stay for
another reminder of her ducking, but Rita followed her very slowly. "If
I could see him again," she murmured, "I feel sure he would speak to me.
I don't care what they say. Dolores may scold as much as she pleases. I
will ask Send Warning about those words, and all about those pictures."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]