."

"Well, if you don't start back up the pass pretty soon, you won't have
any chance. Do you think you can keep your word with us?"

"Reckon we kin, with white men like you. So'll all the rest, when we
tell 'em it don't cover the mine. You take your own chances on that."

"We do."

"Then we've no ill-will about this little scrimmage. Mebbe you did us a
good turn."

"You may say that. Tell your mates I warn 'em to let the Indians alone
down here. There's too many of 'em."

"Tell you what, now, old man, there's something about you that ain't so
bad, arter all."

That was the remark of the first miner Murray set loose, but the second
added,

"You've got a hard fist of your own, though. My head rings yet."

"It'd ring worse if it had been cracked by an Apache war-club. You and
your mates travel!"

They plunged into the thicket for their horses, and when they came out
again Murray and Steve had disappeared.

"Gone, have they?" said Bill. "And we don't know any more about 'em than
we did before. What'll Captain Skinner say?"

"What'll we say to him? That's what beats me. And to the boys? I don't
keer to tell 'em we was whipped in a minute and tied up by an old man, a
boy, two girl squaws, and a redskin."

"It don't tell well, that's a fact."

It was the truth, however, and the three miners rode away up the pass in
a decidedly uncomfortable frame of mind.

Murray had beckoned Steve to follow him, and they had slipped away among
the rocks and bushes, but not too far to see what became of the three
miners.

"They might have kept their word, Steve, and they might not. We were at
their mercy, standing out there. They could have shot us from the cover."

"Oh, they are white men--not Indians. They never would do such a thing
as that!"

"Wouldn't they! Didn't you hear him confess that they were trying to
steal your mine? And didn't he say they were robbers, running away with
stolen gold? Murderers, too? That's the kind of white men that stir up
nine-tenths of all the troubles with the Indians. Let alone the Apaches:
that tribe never did keep a treaty."

"The one we saw to-day looked like a Lipan."

"So he did, and he stood right up for the girls. He's a brave fellow.
And, Steve, one of those young squaws was no more an Indian than you or I
be. It makes my heart sore and sick to think of it. A fine young girl
like that, with such an awful life before her!"

"The other one was bright