Whipping sixty Lipans was one thing; attacking them with a strong force
of pale-face riflemen to help them was quite another.

"What Send Warning say do?"

"Do?" almost sharply exclaimed Murray, with his eyes upon the
retreating form of Mother Dolores. "I'll tell you. Send your whole
camp across the river. They can surround it here. Then send out your
best braves to watch for the Lipans. They'll attack you before
morning. That's what they came for. They won't fight the miners."

He was partly right and partly wrong, but Many Bears and his chiefs
rose to their feet as one man.

"The words of Send Warning are wise. He is very old, and he is a
chief. No use talk any more. All braves go and eat a heap. Tell
squaws bring up all ponies. Get ready to cross river. No lose time."

Murray was not a "general," and he had never studied war, but he knew
it would be a good thing to have deep water between that camp and any
assailants instead of behind it. Many Bears was a chief of great
experience, but it had never occurred to him that it would cost him all
his horses if he should be beaten in a fight with a river behind him.
The blunder was remedied now with a rapidity which astonished even
Murray, for he had not known how good a ford there was right there.

"Hope the Lipans won't find that out," he said to himself. "They'll
think twice before they try to swim their horses. I've given these
fellows good advice. May prevent a battle. But if one should come,
how could I fight the Lipans? What am I doing in an Apache camp
anyhow? Steve and I must make haste out of this."

And then a puzzled, pained, anxious look came over his wrinkled face,
and he seemed to be looking around him very wistfully indeed, as if he
wanted to see somebody.

"Not to-night, perhaps; but I'll see her again in the morning. Steve
and I must get away to-morrow. It'll be easy enough to give him his
directions, and I can find Two Knives and his braves in a few hours."

Murray was a good deal upset by something or other, and it may be he
had not quite made up his own mind what his difficulty might be.

As the deepening gloom of the evening settled slowly down he stood
beside Many Bears on the bank of the river, and watched the young
braves drive in the last squads of ponies from their pasturage and urge
them across the ford. He had no idea how much quiet fun Steve and his
friend Red Wolf had already enjoyed in a very similar occup