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.
For himself, the first idea that called for expression was suggested by
a faint odor of something broiling on the coals just in front of Mother
Dolores.
"Send Warning ride long way. Get very hungry. Come. All great braves
eat a heap."
If the power to eat very nearly as fast, for a given time, as Dolores
herself could cook, was a sure mark of greatness, Many Bears had no
superior in his own band. It had not made a fat man of him yet, but
there was no telling what it might do for him in the course of time.
The chiefs and warriors whose fame and rank entitled them to such a
privilege soon gathered for the expected "talk," and there were some of
them whose busy squaws ventured to bring them supplies of provisions,
but the greater number were contented to wait a while.
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. Indians are just like other human beings in such
matters. Always ready to give a good dinner to a man from whom they
expect something. To be sure, all they were now looking for was good
advice, and sometimes people are not willing to give much for that.
There was plenty to eat, and with it a great deal of dignity. Even
questions were asked slowly and carefully, and every answer was
thoughtfully considered before any comment was made upon it. At first
Murray 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 warlike 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 mentioned.
"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 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."
Murray was a good deal upset by something or other, and it may be he
had not quite made up his own mind what his difficulty might be.
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 in a very similar occupation. 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 doing all the mischievous pranks
they knew.
Old Too Many Toes had been conspicuous in shoving small Indians into
the water, and when at last she finished packing her little borrowed
mule and a borrowed pony, there was a perfect swarm of "divers and
duckers" around her. The water came well up the sides of the little
mule, and she would not have minded that if the boys had been willing
it should go no higher.
Even the solemn face of Many Bears himself expanded into a chuckle of
dignified fun.
"Ugh! Squaw scold. Get spattered."
"Look!" said Red Wolf at the same instant. "Drop baby."
Not her pappoose, for it was safe under her blanket, but her
three-year-old girl had slipped from behind her, and the river was
sweeping it down stream.
"It will be drowned!" exclaimed Steve, in some excitement.
"No. Apache baby never sink. Swim a heap. Look!"
Steve looked, and there was no question but what the queer little thing
was paddling bravely, and not even showing fear. To be sure, the
current was carrying it away, but Steve now saw that three or four
older boys and girls were swimming around it and were ready to give it
all the help needed.
For all that, the wrath and anxiety of Too Many Toes exhibited itself
in a torrent of long words.
Steve had learned among the Lipans that the red men have a great deal
of fun in their compositions, but he was almost surprised to hear Red
Wolf say, "Squaw talk big rain. Fall in river. Have freshet then.
Lipans can't follow Apaches."
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 for a moment whose family they belonged to.
"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."
"I'm not looking at them."
"Neither am I. I don't care for Red Wolf either."
"And I don't care whether Knotted Cord sees me or not. I wish I could
talk with Send Warning."
"What for?"
"To ask about the talking leaves."
"Knotted Cord could tell you. He is a pale-face."
"He is a mere boy. Send Warning's head is very white."
"Look out, Rita. Your horse's feet are slipping."
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 the two mules loaded with
lodge-poles.
Alas for the vanity of the chiefs 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 it was clear that she did not need a bit of help from
anybody. No Apache girl of her age ever needed to be taught to swim.
It was quite a credit to her, indeed, in the eyes of Steve Harrison,
that she should so promptly catch her mustang by the head, turn it to
the ledge, find her own footing on the rock, and encourage the unlucky
quadruped to follow.
Then, 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. She had heard Red Wolf laugh.
"Rita, did you look at them?"
"Look at whom? I was looking at you."
"Did they both laugh? Or was it only Red Wolf?"
"I don't know."
"Go on! Go on! Too Many Toes is saying something about me. She says
it is her ford, and I fell in because I did not know where it was.
Hurry on, Rita."
It was a sad blow to the pride of poor Ni-ha-be, but it need not have
been. Any girl in the world might have had just such an accident
befall her, but not a great many could have helped themselves out of it
so skilfully and so bravely. That was precisely what Steve Harrison
had been thinking, and he had not joined at all in the laughter of Red
Wolf.
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."
She little guessed that at that very moment Murray was saying to Steve
Harrison,
"Yes, Steve, she's pure white, but she's Indianized. Talks Indian.
Thinks Indian. Don't know she's white."