ied venison before
she broiled them, and the great chief would be the best-fed man in camp
until the hunters should return from the valley below with fresh game.

They were quite likely to do that before night, but Many Bears was a
man who never waited long for something to eat after a hard day's march.

If Dolores had been a little alarmed at the prospect of being forced to
"remember," a very different feeling had entered the mind of Rita when
she and her sister came out of the lodge.

"What shall we do, Ni-ha-be?"

"Red Wolf told me he had something to say to me. There he is now. He
beckons me to come. He does not want you."

"I am glad of it. There are trees and bushes down there beyond the
corral. I will go and be alone."

"You will tell me all the talking leaves say to you?"

"Yes, but they will talk very slowly, I'm afraid."

Even the harsher sounds of the Apache tongue had a pleasant ring in the
sweet, clear voices of the two girls, and the softer syllables, of
which there were many, rippled after each other like water in a brook.
It seemed, too, as if they said quite as much to each other by signs as
by words. That is always so among people who live a great deal
out-of-doors, or in narrow quarters, where other people can easily hear
ordinary conversation.

The one peculiar thing about the signs used by the American Indians is
that they mean so much and express it so clearly. Men of different
tribes, not able to understand a word of each other's spoken tongue,
will meet and talk together by the hour in "sign language" as
intelligently as two well-trained deaf mutes among the whites.

Perhaps one reason more for so much "sign talking" is that there are so
many tribes, each with a very rough tongue of its own, that is not easy
for other tribes to pick up.

Red Wolf was again beckoning to Ni-ha-be, and there was an impatient
look on his dark, self-willed face. It was time for her to make haste,
therefore, and Rita put the three magazines under the light folds of
her broad antelope-skin cap and tripped away toward the bit of bushy
grove just beyond the "corral."

What is that?

In the language of the very "far West" it is any spot or place where
horses are gathered and kept, outside of a stable.

The great Apache nation does not own a single stable or barn, although
it does own multitudes of horses, ponies, mules, and even horned
cattle. All these, therefore, have to be "corralled," except w