If To-la-go-to-de and his Lipans had moved forward just a little earlier that morning, they might have been in time to witness the departure of Captain Skinner and his men on their ill-advised expedition. As it was, they were astonished enough by what they saw.

"Pale-faces."

"Big wagons."

"Much horse. Much mule."

"No Tongue leave that behind him for Lipans to take, and go on after Apaches."

They believed they had solved one of their puzzles; but a good deal harder one was the question, "Who are those pale-faces, and where do they come from?" No such party had ever been known or heard of in that vicinity, and To-la-go-to-de instantly came to the decision that this one should never be heard of again.

"Not many," he said. "Ride straight down valley and eat 'em up. Plenty plunder. Carry back big present for squaw to look at."

His eager warriors answered him with whoops and yells of approval, and he led them swiftly down all that was left of the pass and out into the valley.

It looked as if Murray had been altogether right when he sent word to Captain Skinner by Bill that there was "danger behind him." Bill himself was thinking of it at that very moment, and saying to one of his mates, "I'd about as lief see the sheriff and his posse, all the way from Denver."

"Well, yes, I'd a good deal ruther be arrested than scalped any day."

"Thar's a big swarm of 'em. No use for us to fight. I can't even lift my rifle."

"Try a little friendship. Maybe old Skinner'll tell ye you've been showin' good-sense agin."

"May save our scalps, boys; but I don't reckon it'll save us much of anything else."

"They're comin' right down onto us. If Skinner and all the boys were here, we could stop 'em, though."

If To-la-go-to-de's keen eyes had told him there were two dozen sharp-shooting white men in that camp, instead of three, he and his Lipans would never have dreamed of charging in as they now did.

It was not a very ceremonious or friendly way of making a morning call. There was a good deal too much noise about it. Too much clattering of lances and too many fierce, exulting war-whoops.

"Our time's come, Bill."

"It is if we anger them. Keep a steady eye, boys. Say 'How!'"

Those three miners were men of great courage, and their nerves must have been in the best of order, for they steadily walked out to the border of the camp and met the Lipans as if they had invited them to breakfast and were expecting them to come. There was just this difference, however, between their greeting of the Lipans and Murray's encounter with the Apaches: Bill and his two friends had sent no act of kindness and good-will ahead of them, while Murray and Steve were already firmly established, and well known as "friends of the Apaches, ready to fight for friends."

It was a very wide difference, but the three miners had acted wisely. The Lipan warriors in front of them lowered their lances, and the chief himself responded grimly to their "How!" But he did not offer to shake hands with them, and he did not check his braves in their rush through the camp and all over it.

"Don't tell 'em too much, Bill. The Captain and the boys won't be gone long. We can't warn 'em nuther."

That was just before old Two Knives gathered all the English he knew to question his prisoners. He saw at a glance that the men before him were only a part of a large party. The fires and the signs left of the breakfast which had been eaten were quite enough for that, not to speak of the size of the outfit.

"How many?" he asked.

Bill held up both hands, with the fingers spread, twice, and then one hand.

"Ugh! How hurt arm?"

"Fight with Apaches."

"Ugh! Good. Where gone? All pale-face braves?"

"Hunt Apaches. Out there."

"Ugh? Hope find 'em. Kill half. Lipans kill rest. Kill pale-face too. Put down gun. Prisoner this time. Shut mouth."

Bill had never in his life seen an uglier expression on the face of a man than was worn by that of the Lipan chief at that moment.

There was no use in resistance. Silently the three miners permitted themselves to be deprived of all their weapons; but the "stripping" stopped there. A brave who reached out his hand for the battered hat on the head of Bill was checked by To-la-go-to-de.

"Ugh! No want him. Let pale-face wear him. Take off scalp too, by-and-by."

There was nothing very cheering in that, but Bill's head did feel a little safer with the hat on.

"Tell ye what, boys," he afterward said to his mates, "when that redskin's hand teched the brim of that hat it felt as if the hull top o' my head was comin' loose."

It did not take those sixty Lipans long to find out all there was to be found in that camp. Their first and keenest interest was in the horses and mules, and the quality and number of these drew from them shouts of approval. The mules alone were worth any number of mustang ponies in a trade either with other Indians or with the border pale-faces.

Their first attempt at ransacking the wagons was sternly checked by old Two Knives.

"Maybe pale-faces got fire-water. To-la-go-to-de not want braves drunk now. Big fight maybe."

Every brave among them knew the good-sense of that, but they felt better satisfied a little later. The chief himself superintended a careful inspection of the wagons by two of his oldest sub-chiefs.

"He won't find a drap of any kind of liquor," growled Bill. "But I wish thar was some, and I could pisen it for him. They're a bad lot."

"Thar's too many on 'em for the boys to handle, I'm afraid."

"Captain Skinner's jest the man to try it and find out. Thar'll be a hot time, thar will!"

Two Knives probably had some such idea in his head, for his next orders, when carried out, left Bill and his two mates firmly bound to separate trees, so that no braves need be compelled to waste their precious time as "guards" over them.............