been caught.

"Trap hurt!" he complained, drawing up his wrinkled face and rattling
his chain impatiently, and Wunpost nodded gravely.

"All right," he said, "I'll turn you loose. A man that will flash his
roll like I did in Blackwater--he _deserves_ to get shot in the
leg."

He took his rope from the saddle and noosed the Indian about both arms,
after which he stretched him out as he would a fighting wildcat and
loosened the springs with his clamps.

"What you do?" he inquired, "if I let you go?"

"Go home!" snarled Manuel, "Lynchie no good--me no likum. Me your
friend--no shootum--go home!"

"Well, you'd better," warned Wunpost, "because next time I'll kill you.
Oh, by grab, I nearly forgot!"

He whipped out the butcher-knife which the Apache had flung at him and
cropped off a lock of his hair. It was something he had promised
Wilhelmina.

CHAPTER XXII

THE FEAR OF THE HILLS

Wunpost romped off down the canyon, holding the hair up like a
scalp-lock--which it was, except for the scalp. Manuel Apache, with the
pride of his kind, had knotted it up in a purple silk handkerchief; and
he had yelled louder when he found it was gone than he had when he was
caught in the trap. He had, in fact, acted extremely unreasonable,
considering all that had been done for him; and Wunpost had been obliged
to throw down on him with his six-shooter and order him off up the
canyon. It was taking a big chance to allow him to live at all and, not
to tempt him too far along the lines of reprisal, Wunpost left the
Apache afoot. His gaunted pony was feeding hobbled, down the canyon, and
Wunpost took off the rawhide thongs and hung them about his neck, after
which he drove him on with his mules. But even at that he was taking a
chance, or so at least it seemed, for the look in the Apache's eye as he
had limped off up the gulch reminded Wunpost of a broken-backed
rattlesnake.

He was a bad Indian and a bad actor--one of these men that throw
butcher-knives--and yet Wunpost had tamed him and set him afoot and come
off with his back-hair, as promised. He was a Government scout, the pick
of the Apaches, and he had matched his desert craft against Wunpost's;
but that craft, while it was good, was not good enough, and he had
walked right into a bear-trap. Not the trap in the trail--he had gone
around that--but the one in the rocks, with the step-diverting bush
pulled down. Wunpost had gauged it to a nicety and this big chief of th