ls wondered more and more to see
how the fingers of Dolores trembled as they closed upon that bit of
paper.

She looked at the picture again with increasing earnestness. Her lips
moved silently, as if trying to utter words her mind had lost.

Then her great fiery black eyes slowly closed, and the amazement of
Ni-ha-be and Rita was greater than they could have expressed, for
Mother Dolores sunk upon her knees hugging that picture. She had been
an Apache Indian for long years, and was thoroughly "Indianized," but
upon that page had been printed a very beautiful representation of a
Spanish "Way-side Shrine of the Virgin."

CHAPTER IV

A mountain range is not at all like a garden fence. You do not just
climb up one side of it and drop down into another garden beyond.

The one which arose before the Lipans that day, and through which the
Apaches before them had driven their long lines of ponies, loaded with
buffalo-meat and all the baggage of an Indian hunting-camp, was really
a wide strip of very rough country, full of mountains and rising to a
high range in the centre. The Lipans were not very well acquainted
with it, except by what they had heard from others, and there had been
some murmuring among them at first, when their leader announced his
intention of following his "war-path" to the other side of such a
barrier as that.

His speech had settled it all, however, and his warriors were ready to
go with him no matter where he should lead them. Anything rather than
go back empty-handed to be laughed at.

The moment luncheon was over every man was on horseback. It was
absolutely necessary to find "grass" before night, if their horses were
to be good for anything the next day.

They knew that the particular band of Apaches they were pursuing must
be two or three days' march ahead of them; but they also knew that
every mountain range has its deep, green valleys, and that the trail
left by their enemies would surely lead through the best of these.

Up, up, up, through rugged ravines and gorges for nearly an hour, and
then down again almost as far, and then, sooner than they had expected,
they came upon the very thing they were looking for. It was not so
large or so beautiful a valley as the one in which Many Bears and his
men were encamped, miles and miles beyond. It did not widen like that
at its lower end into a broad and undulating plain, with a river and a
forest far away; but there was plenty of