ld have taken her off the captain's hands, but
nothing would induce the faithful creature to leave the motherless
"childer." She loved them both--and if they were to go through danger
she would go with them. All the same she stood sturdily out in her
resentment toward the captain and would not answer now. Jim, too, on the
driver's seat, was gloomily silent. Manuelito with the mules in rear had
listened to Sieber's warning with undisguised dismay. Only
Pike--ex-corporal of the captain's troop--rode unconcernedly ahead. What
cared he for Apaches? He had fought them time and again.

Nevertheless when Captain Gwynne came cantering out to the front and
joined his old non-commissioned officer, it was with some surprise that
he listened to Pike's salutation.

"May I say a word to the captain?"

"Certainly, Pike; say on."

"I was watching Manuelito, sir, while the captain was talking with
Sieber. Them greasers are a bad lot, sir--one and all. There isn't one
of 'em I'd trust as far as I could sling a bull by the tail. That
Manuelito is just stampeded by what he's heard, and while he dare not
whirl about and go now, I warn the captain to have an eye on the mules
to-night. He'll skip back for the Verde with only one of them rather
than try Sunset Pass to-morrow."

"Why! confound it, Pike, that fellow has been in my service five years
and never failed me yet."

"True enough, sir; but the captain never took him campaigning. They do
very well around camp, sir, but they'd rather face the gates of
purgatory than try their luck among the Tontos. I believe one Apache
could lick a dozen of 'em."

The captain turned slowly back, and took a good look at the Mexican as
he sat on his high spring seat, and occasionally encouraged his team
with endearing epithets, or, as in the manner of the tribe, scored them
with wildest blasphemy. Ordinarily Manuelito was wont to show his white
teeth, and touch the broad, silver-edged brim of his sombrero, when "el
capitan" reined back to see how he was getting along. To-day there was a
sullen scowl for the first moment, and then, as though suddenly
recollecting himself, the dark-skinned fellow gave a ghastly sort of
grin--and the captain felt certain that Pike's idea was right. The
question was simply how to circumvent him.

At sunset the little party was cosily camped on the edge of Snow Lake--a
placid little sheet far up among the mountains. The plateau was broken
by a low ridge a few miles eas