Had To-la-go-to-de and his Lipans moved forward a little earlier that
morning, they might have been in time to witness the departure of
Captain Skinner and his men on their ill-advised expedition. As it was,
they were astonished enough by what they saw.
"Pale-faces!"
"Big wagons."
"Much horse. Much mule."
"No Tongue leave that behind him for Lipans to take, and go on after
Apaches."
They believed they had solved one of their puzzles, but a good deal
harder one was the question, "Who are those pale-faces, and where do
they come from?"
No such party had ever been known or heard of in that vicinity, and
To-la-go-to-de instantly came to the decision that this one should never
be heard of again.
"Not many," he said. "Ride straight down valley, and eat 'em up. Plenty
plunder. Carry back big present for squaw to look at."
His eager warriors answered him with whoops and yells of approval, and
he led them swiftly down the pass and out into the valley.
It looked as if Murray had been right when he sent word to Captain
Skinner by Bill that there was "danger behind him."
Bill himself was thinking of it at that very moment, and saying to one
of his mates, "I'd about as lief see the sheriff and his posse all the
way from Denver."
"Well, yes, I'd a good deal rather be arrested than scalped any day."
"Thar's a big swarm of 'em. No use for us to fight. I can't even lift my
rifle."
"Try a little friendship. Maybe old Skinner'll tell ye you've been
showin' good sense agin."
"May save our scalps, boys, but I don't reckon it'll save us much of
anything else."
"They're comin' right down onto us. If Skinner and all the boys were
here, we could stop 'em, though."
If To-la-go-to-de's keen eyes had told him there were two dozen
sharp-shooting white men in that camp, instead of three, he and his
Lipans would never have dreamed of charging in as they now did.
"Our time's come, Bill."
"It is if we anger them. Keep a steady eye, boys. Say 'How.'"
Those three miners were men of great courage, and their nerves must have
been in the best of order, for they steadily walked out to the border of
the camp, and met the Lipans as if they had invited them to breakfast,
and were expecting them to come.
There was just this difference, however, between their greeting of the
Lipans and Murray's encounter with the Apaches: Bill and his two friends
had sent no act of kindness and good-will ahead of them, while Murray
and Steve were already firmly established and well known as "friends of
the Apaches, ready to fight for friends."
It was a very wide difference, but the three miners had acted wisely.
The Lipan warriors in front of them lowered their lances, and the chief
himself responded grimly to their "How."
He did not offer to shake hands with them, and he did not check his
braves in their rush through the camp and all over it.
"Don't tell 'em too much, Bill. The Captain and the boys won't be gone
long. We can't warn 'em nuther."
That was just before old Two Knives gathered all the English he knew to
question his prisoners. He saw at a glance that the men before him were
only a part of a large party. The fires and the signs left of the
breakfast which had been eaten were quite enough for that, not to speak
of the size of the outfit.
"How many?" he asked.
Bill held up both hands, with the fingers spread, twice, and then one
hand.
"Ugh! How hurt arm?"
"Fight with Apaches."
"Ugh! Good. Where gone? All pale-face braves?"
"Hunt Apaches. Out there."
"Ugh! Hope find 'em. Kill half. Lipans kill rest. Kill pale-face too.
Put down gun. Prisoner, this time. Shut mouth."
Bill had never in his life seen an uglier expression on the face of a
man than was worn by that of the Lipan chief at that moment.
There was no use in resistance. Silently the three miners permitted
themselves to be deprived of all their weapons, but the "stripping"
stopped there. A brave who reached out his hand for the battered hat on
the head of Bill was checked by To-la-go-to-de.
"Ugh! No want him. Let pale-face wear him. Take off scalp by-and-by."
There was nothing very cheering in that, but Bill's head did feel a
little safer with the hat on.
"Tell ye what, boys," he afterward said to his mates, "when that
red-skin's hand tetched the brim of that hat, it felt as if the hull top
o' my head was comin' loose."
It did not take those sixty Lipans long to find out all there was to be
found in that camp. Their first and keenest interest was in the horses
and mules, and the quality and number of these drew from them shouts of
approval. The mules alone were worth any number of mustang ponies in a
trade either with other Indians or with the border pale-faces.
Their first attempt at ransacking the wagons was sternly checked by old
Two Knives.
"Maybe pale-faces got fire-water. To-la-go-to-de not want braves drunk
now. Big fight, maybe."
Every brave among them knew the good sense of that, but they felt better
satisfied a little later. The chief himself superintended a careful
inspection of the wagons by two of his oldest sub-chiefs.
"He won't find a drop of any kind of liquor," growled Bill. "But I wish
thar was some, and I could pisen it for him. They're a bad lot."
"Thar's too many on 'em for the boys to handle, I'm afraid."
"Captain Skinner's jest the man to try it and find out. Thar'll be a hot
time, thar will."
Two Knives probably had some such idea in his head, for his next orders,
when carried out, left Bill and his two mates firmly bound to separate
trees, so that no braves need be compelled to waste their precious time
as "guards" over them.
The fate of the three prisoners was a matter to be thought over.
To-la-go-to-de was by no means sure he had no further use for them. He
could wait until his braves should return from the examination he had
ordered of the plain below the valley. It was less than an hour before
they came back, and in a remarkable hurry, with the news of the approach
of the main body of the pale-faces.
Old Two Knives merely nodded his head. His captives had told him the
truth. But that number of white men would not be likely to attack at
once so strong a band as his own. A full company of regular cavalry
would hardly have been enough to scare him, for the Lipans are second to
no other tribe in their fighting qualities, and these were picked and
chosen warriors.
"Pale-face come. Laugh at him."
Captain Skinner and his men saw nothing to laugh at when they rode near
enough to understand the condition of affairs in their camp. The blow
had fallen upon them so suddenly that for some moments after they halted
on the plain, half a mile away, not a man could say a word.
"It's our fault. Cap. We ort to have follered your advice."
"Ort not to have left the camp."
"You was right."
"It's too late for that kind of talk, boys. The question for us is, what
had we best do. Anybody got anything to say?"
There was another moment of glum, sulky silence, and then a perfect
storm of angry outcries.
"Charge in on 'em."
"Kill every soul of 'em."
"Fight right away."
"We won't lose all that's in them wagons."
"That'll do, boys. I know you've got all the grit for a fight," said
Captain Skinner; "but suppose they're too much for us, and wipe us all
out, what then?"
"Then that's what it'll have to be, Cap. We're ready."
"All right, boys. But no matter what comes, not a man of you must run.
Not for a yard."
"We'll stand by ye, Cap."
"Most likely thar ain't no use talking of Bill and the boys."
"Not much, I reckon. They had no kind of show."
There was no time to do any mourning for their comrades, but the way in
which that line of white horsemen now rode forward made the Lipans open
their eyes in astonishment.
"Keep about a rod apart," said the Captain. "Walk your horses. Don't
fire a shot unless you've got a good aim at something. We'll draw them
nigh enough to teach 'em a thing or two."
For once even old Two Knives, with all his cunning, was led into making
a mistake. He was unwise enough to try and scare those miners, when
there was not a man among them who knew how to be afraid, and they had
all agreed to be killed rather than not whip those Lipans and get back
what was in the wagons.
It was a bad mistake for those Indians to make even a threat of a
charge, when it brought them, in a pretty compact mass, just as they
were about to wheel, instead of "charging," less than two hundred yards
from the steady line of pale-faces.
"Now, boys, save every shot."
It was not a volley. The rifles cracked rapidly, one after another, but
all were fired in a very few seconds, and the Lipans recoiled in dismay,
firing wildly as they went, and carrying off their dead and wounded.
"Keep it up, boys. Steady. Take a pony if you can't hit a red-skin."
The "rally" of the Lipans was quickly made, and their own firing grew
hotter, but it had little of the cool accuracy that Captain Skinner
insisted on from his own men. All the while, too, he was moving steadily
forward, and To-la-go-to-de began to understand what kind of men he had
to deal with.
[Illustration: "HALT! THEY'VE BROUGHT OUT THE BOYS."]
A sharp, deep-throated order to three of his braves was rapidly obeyed,
and in a few minutes more the miners heard their Captain's voice,
excitedly,
"Halt! They've brought out the boys. They've stopped firing."
It was precisely so. There were Bill and his two mates, on foot, with
their arms tied behind them, and before each stood a Lipan with his
lance levelled, ready to strike at a moment's warning.
"That's plain, boys. They've got their lesson. Don't want any more. Want
a talk. They'll kill those three if we don't hold up."
"We've only lost two, Cap, and we've laid out more'n a dozen of them."
"Save the boys."
"No fault of their'n."
"Have a talk, Cap."
"We'll have to give up something if we do," said the Captain, in a
dubious tone. "They'll never give us back the outfit, you know."
"You know what we want. We're close to the border now."
"All right. I'll ride out. I reckon their chief'll come to meet me."
The meaning of the Lipans had been plain enough. The sudden firing of
the miners upon their superior force had had all the effect of a
surprise.
They were furiously angry over their losses, but their wise leader saw
that he must give them a breathing spell. No troops in the world could
stand a fire so withering as that which came from the repeating rifles
of the desperadoes. Quite as many ponies as men had gone down, and their
morning's plunder had already cost them more than it was worth.
Therefore it must not be permitted to cost them any more, if they could
help it by threats and talking.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]