For his own part, To-la-go-to-de had decided upon the policy he should
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 look-out. 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 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, then. Better 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 that 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 rolling
prairie and the increasing darkness.
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 more sure, 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 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."
Every pair of eyes among them was now busy peering into the darkness as
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 further 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. 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."
[Illustration: THE MINERS CROSSING THE FORD.]
He never dreamed of looking for a ford there by the village, and there
were no squaws to find it for him and 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."
At the end of a few more hours of hard riding 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.
Then a good place for a camp was selected, and the weary horses were
unsaddled.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]