once more be under as good a shelter
as it knew anything about or cared for.

All that day the axes fell, the wall grew fast, and Judge Parks and
Yellow Pine went on with their examinations and their other preparations
for "opening the mine;" and all day long some other things went on
without their knowing it.

CHAPTER XXIII

DANGER

The Apaches, in their encampment away down the river, cooked fish for
breakfast at about the same hour that the miners did, but their trout
had not been caught anything like so rapidly. It had required the work
of several men, up and down the bank, for hours of the previous evening
and for all the time since daylight, with their imperfect tackle, to get
in enough for such a war-party. Nor had they cleaned or cooked so
perfectly, and the fish had been eaten without pepper or salt. There was
not a plate or a fork in the band, and there was not even a wish for
coffee.

It was a hasty meal, greedily devoured, and then the marauders were once
more in the saddle, or riding barebacked, as the case might be. All the
while that the miners were so enthusiastically raising their stone lodge
a peril they hardly thought of was pushing nearer and nearer. They knew
well enough that they were in an Indian country, but were well assured
that as yet no hostile red men could be aware of their arrival. It was
also pretty sure that every stroke of work they did added to their
security, for neither arrow nor bullet will go through a wall of quartz
and granite two feet in thickness. Judge Parks had ideas of his own as
to the future protection of the "notch," but the time had not yet come
to say anything about them.

It was not many hours after the Apaches got in motion before they came
to the forks of the stream, and here they halted for a general
consultation. They already had well-mounted scouts ahead in both
directions, and neither side had yet sent in any suggestion of danger
discovered. They were evidently familiarly acquainted with the whole
region, and there were arguments in favor of both lines of advance, but
a gray-headed old warrior at last settled the question. He had been
sitting quietly and listening to what others said until his turn seemed
to come, but now he arose, and all seemed willing to listen. Pointing
with his long, naked arm up the right fork of the river, he said, in his
own harsh, gutteral tongue,

"Mountains. When blue-coats come, lose horses. Caught in big trap."

T