The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story, William O. Stoddard [best novels for beginners TXT] 📗

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."

CHAPTER XXIII

If the Lipan chief could but have known, when he set out from his camp that evening, what had been determined on by Many Bears and his councillors, he might have proceeded more wisely. The Apache chief did not even go over the river, nor did any great number of his warriors. Those who