To-la-go-do-de had all the pride of an Indian chief, but he had good
reasons for respecting Captain Skinner. He had seen him handle his men
in a fight, and he had talked with him afterward, and he knew that he
had not beaten the Captain in either case. Now, therefore, that they
were to go on a war-path together, he was not at all above a
consultation with so wise and brave a leader.
For his own part, he had decided upon the right policy to follow. He
had told his older warriors, "The pale-faces are cunning. The Lipans
must be wise. Suppose the Apaches kill many pale-faces. Ugh! Good.
Lipans kill rest of them very easy. Not so many to kill."
He was right about the Captain's "cunning," for it was a good deal like
his own "wisdom," and it had been expressed to his men in the same way.
"The Apaches are strong enough to beat them and us too, and they'll be
on the lookout. We mustn't throw ourselves away, boys. We must get
separated somehow. There won't be enough Lipans left to follow us far."
He and Two Knives, therefore, had about the same object in view when
they rode out together in advance of their combined force after supper.
The sun was setting, but it would be a good while yet before dark.
The miners were all mounted, and nobody would have guessed how much
extra weight they were carrying. They were drawn up now in a close
rank in front of their little camp, in which they had not left a single
guard. Two Knives asked about that.
"What for?" replied Skinner. "What good to leave men? If the Lipans
want to rob wagon they kill the men we leave. Suppose Lipans do as
they agree, camp safe? No. It will take all the men we've got to
fight the Apaches."
That was good-sense, and Two Knives only said "Ugh!" to it; but his
next question meant more.
"How about fight? Tell chief what do."
"No, I won't. It's your fight more than mine. If you want us to go
ahead, we will go. If you say we are to keep back and let you go
ahead, all right. If we say we want to do anything you will think it
is crooked. Better not say. You say."
The chief had been expecting to hear some plan of action, and to find
something "crooked" in it. Captain Skinner had beaten him at once and
completely.
"Then you ride along with Lipans."
"No. The hearts of your young braves are hot and bitter. My men are
angry. Must keep apart. Have fight among ourselves. No good."
There was no denying the good-sense of that, and Two Knives had no fear
at all but what his pale-face allies would come back after their wagon,
extra horses and mules. Of course they would stick to property for
which they had shown themselves so ready to fight, and he could not
suspect that they now had the best part of it carefully stowed away
around them.
"Ugh! Pale-faces can't go ahead. Not stay behind. What then?"
"You say. We go."
"Ride left hand, then. Away off there. Not too far. We go this way.
Both find Apaches. Come together then."
"All right. That'll suit us. Send some braves along to see that we
don't run away."
Two Knives would have done so if Captain Skinner had not asked for it;
but he instantly suspected a cunning plot for the destruction of as
many braves as he might send, and he replied,
"Ugh! No good. Pale-faces take care of themselves to-night."
So both of them got what they wanted.
Two Knives believed that by keeping to the right he should make a
circuit and surprise the Apache camp, while the miners would be sure to
meet any outlying force by riding toward it in a straight line.
Captain Skinner's one idea was to get as far as possible from the
Lipans, he hardly cared in what direction. To the "left" was also to
the southward, and so he was better off than he had hoped for.
"Go slow, boys," he said to his men. "We must go right across every
stream we come to. The more water we can put behind us the better."
The Lipans also advanced with caution at first, keenly watching the
distrusted miners until they were hidden from them by the rolls of the
prairie and the increasing darkness.
"Cap," said Bill, as they rode along, "why can't we turn now and win
back the camp?"
"Yes, we could do it. And win another fight and lose some more men.
Perhaps all of us. I'm not in any hurry for that."
The line on which the Captain was leading them slanted away more and
more toward the south, but not so much as yet that it need have aroused
the suspicions of To-la-go-to-de's keen-eyed spies who were keeping
track of them.
They reached a good-sized brook, and the moment they were over it the
Captain shouted,
"That gets bigger, or it runs into something before it's gone far.
That's our chance, boys."
Nothing could be surer, for all the brooks in the world do that very
thing.
Besides, that brook was running in the direction in which the miners
wanted to go, and they now pushed forward more rapidly.
"If I knew where the Apache village was," said the Captain, "I'd go
near enough to see if we could pick up some ponies. But we won't waste
any time looking for it."
The men had plenty of comments to make, but not one of them was willing
to set up his own judgment against that of the ragged little Captain.
They would never have seen that village if it had not been for the
river itself.
The brook was a true guide. In due time it led the miners to the place
where it poured its little contribution into the larger stream, and
that looked wider and gloomier by night than by day.
"No ford right here, boys. The water runs too still and quiet. We
must follow it down."
"Why not follow it up, Captain?"
"Swamps. Can't you see?"
"Wall, no, I can't."
"I can, then. It's half a sort of lake. The river comes out of it.
Lower down it'll run faster, and we'll find some shallow place."
"May run against Apaches."
"Got to take our chances."
There was no help for it, but every pair of eyes among them was as busy
as the dim light would let it be, while they rode along the bank.
If they could but find a ford!
They thought they found one once, and a tall horseman wheeled his horse
down the bank and into the placid water.
"Careful, now. Feel your way a foot at a time," shouted Skinner.
"'Tain't three feet deep yet, and it's a good bottom."
It did not seem to get any deeper until he was half-way across, and the
rest were getting ready to follow him, when his horse seemed to stumble
and plunge forward.
There was a splash and a smothered cry, and that was all. Days
afterward an Apache hunter found a stray horse, all saddled and
bridled, feeding on the bank near the spot where he had swum ashore,
but nobody ever saw any more of his rider. He had too many pounds of
stolen gold about him, heavier than lead, and it had carried him to the
bottom instantly.
"Boys," said Captain Skinner, "I'll try the next ford myself. I was
half afraid of that."
Every man of them understood just what had happened, and knew that it
was of no use for them to do anything but ride along down the bank.
There was not a great deal farther to go before a sharp string of
exclamations ran along the line.
"See there!"
"Camp-fires yonder!"
"That's the Apache village!"
"It's on the other shore!"
"Hark, boys! Hear that--off to the northward? There's a fight going
on. Ride now. We're away in behind it."
Captain Skinner was right again. By pushing on along the bank of the
river he was soon in full view of the village, but there was very
little of it to be seen at that time of night.
At the same time, just because he was so near it, he ran almost no risk
at all of meeting any strong force of Apaches. The sound of far-away
fighting had somehow ceased, but the Captain did not care to know any
more about it.
"Silence, boys. Forward. Our chance has come."
He never dreamed of looking for a ford there by the village, and there
were no squaws to find it for him or point it out. More than a mile
below he came to the broad, rippling shallow the Apache warriors had
reported to their chief, and into this he led his men without a
moment's hesitation.
"Steady, boys; pick your tracks. Where the ripples show, the bottom
isn't far down, but it may be a little rough."
A large part of it was rough enough, but Captain Skinner seemed to be
able to steer clear of anything really dangerous, and in a few minutes
more he was leading them out on the southerly shore.
"Now, boys," he said, "do you see what we've done?"
"We've got across the river," said Bill, "without any more of us
gettin' drownded."
"That's so; but we've done a heap more than that. We've put the Apache
village between us and the Lipans, and all we've got to do is to strike
for the Mexican line."
That was all, and yet at least half of them had something to urge in
favor of a night prowl around the Apache village, to see if they could
not steal a few ponies.
"My load's gettin' powerful heavy, Cap," said one.
"We want pack ponies for our provisions," said another.
"After we get some."
"Boys," said Captain Skinner, "if that band of Apaches once gets on our
track we won't need many more provisions. I'm going to give 'em as
wide a berth as ever I can."
Again the Captain showed his superior wisdom, and he hardly permitted
them to halt until the sun was rising. Just then the foremost man sent
back a loud shout of,
"Here's another river!"
"That's all right," said Captain Skinner. "Now I know where we are."
"Where is it, then?" said Bill.
"The first river we forded was the north fork of the Yaqui, and this is
the other fork. When we're on the other bank of that, we're in Mexico.
We can go in any line we please then."
The whole band broke out into a chorus of cheers.
Whatever may have been their reason for wishing to get out of the
United States, particularly that part of it, it must have been strong
enough to make them anxious. They were not contented for a moment
until this second "fork" was also forded.
"Cap," asked Bill, "is this Mexico, all around here?"
"I believe it is."
"Then don't you think we'd better go for a few Mexican deer? It's nigh
breakfast time."
It would be necessary to hunt for something unless they were to starve.
A good place for a camp was selected, the weary horses were unsaddled,
all but the half dozen ridden by the hunters, and then the hungry
miners could at last find time to "wonder if the Lipans are looking
round that prairie after us."
"They won't find us," said Captain Skinner. "Start your fires, boys, I
heard a rifle. One of them has struck his game quick."
So he had, but it was a queer kind of "Mexican deer." It had long,
smooth, sharp horns and a long tail, and when the miners came to carve
that venison one of them said,
"Boys, it's the first beef we've had in two months."
"Cap," said another, "do you reckon thar's a cattle ranch around here?"
"Not so near the Apache range as this is."
"How came this critter here, then?"
"I kin tell you," said the miner who had shot that tall, long-legged,
long-horned Mexican steer. "Thar was more of 'em. Wild as buffler.
This one wasn't even branded. They're just no man's cattle, they are."
"That's it," said Captain Skinner. "There are plenty of stray herds
hereaway without any owner. The natives kill them whenever they want
beef, just as we've killed this one. It isn't the best kind of eating,
though. I'd rather look for a little deer-meat by-and-by."
Wild beef was better than nothing at all, however, and a busy lot of
cooks were they for a long time after the first pieces of it were
brought in.
They could talk, too, as well as eat, and the result of all their
discussion was that they would do precisely as Captain Skinner had
advised at the beginning of it.
"We sha'n't be safe, boys, till we get to some kind of town. We can
scatter after that, but we'd best keep together for a while. This is a
powerful uncivilized strip of country that we've got into. I've been
down this way before, and I know what I'm talking about."