Even before the Apaches set out to find their Lipan enemies Murray and Steve made their way across the ford, and were guided by a bright-eyed boy to the lodge which had been set apart for them. That one had been given them at all was a mark of great respect; and this lodge belonged to Many Bear himself, which added to the honor done them.

"Now, Steve," said Murray, "you stay here awhile. I can do some things better if I'm alone."

"All right. But there's no danger of my going to sleep while you're gone."

"Pretty wide awake, eh? Well, it's an exciting time all around."

"It is for me, Murray. I feel as if I had made a good start on my way home."

"I guess you have. Your path is beginning to look pretty clear."

"I've escaped from the Lipans."

"But not yet from the Apaches. I can't say how soon I'll be back again now, but you'd better not leave the lodge."

Steve threw himself down on the blanket he had spread upon the grass, and his thoughts came to him in a perfect crowd.

Sleep—for a boy like him, who had been for three years a prisoner, and was now getting free! He might as well have gone to sleep on his horse, if he had been out there among the warriors on the prairie.

Murray walked away from the lodge very slowly.

"It's not a bad place for a camp," he said to himself, "but that side of it is all bushes, and they have corralled all their loose ponies right in there. Old Many Bears will make some changes when he comes to see it. The squaws laid it out this time."

The lodges of the chief were not far apart from each other, and Murray had not gone twenty steps before he found himself in front of them and face to face with a very stout and dark-complexioned squaw. If she had been a warrior in the most hideous war-paint she could not have expected a man like Send Warning to be startled so at meeting her.

Perhaps she did not notice the tremor which went over him from head to foot, or that his voice was a little husky when he spoke to her. At all events she answered him promptly enough, for at that moment there was nobody in sight or hearing for whose approval or disapproval Mother Dolores cared a button.

She did not so much as give a thought to the youthful occupants of the lodge behind her.

If Ni-ha-be and Rita were not asleep they should be, and they were mere girls anyhow.

Ni-ha-be had not closed her black eyes for a moment, and Rita had only refrained from talking because of the presence of Dolores.

"I am glad she's gone, Rita. It's too bad we are shut up here, where we can't know a word of all that's going on."

"There will be noise enough when the chief and the warriors come."

"Or if the camp is attacked. My bow and arrows are ready."

"I don't believe we are in any danger. Hark! Ni-ha-be, don't speak."

"Somebody is talking with Dolores."

"Hark!"

They listened more and more eagerly, and they even crept to the outer edge of the lodge and gently raised the bottom of the deer-skin covering.

"Ni-ha-be, it is Send Warning."

Murray and Dolores were talking in Mexican Spanish. He was not saying anything about the Lipans, or anything else that seemed to Ni-ha-be very interesting. Neither did Rita understand why it should all be so much so to her, or why her heart should beat and her cheeks burn as she listened.

Murray had used his eyes to some purpose when he had watched Dolores at her cookery, and his first words had made her his very good friend.

"Squaw of great chief. Squaw great cook. Know how."

"Is Send Warning hungry?"

"Not now. Eat enough. Great chief and warriors go after Lipans. Pale-faces stay in camp."

"They will all eat a heap when they come back. Bring Lipan scalps, too."

"The Lipans are enemies of the Apaches. The Mexicans are friends."

"The Mexicans!" exclaimed Dolores.

"Yes. Great chief marry Mexican squaw. Handsome. Good cook."

"I am an Apache!"

"Yes, Apache now. Mexican long ago. Forget all about it. All about Santa Maria—"

"No, no; the talking leaf remembers that." And the poor woman nervously snatched from her bosom the leaf of the magazine on which was printed the picture of the Virgin and Child, and held it out to Murray.

He could but dimly see what it was, but he guessed right, for he said instantly,

"You remember that, do you? I suppose you never knew how to read. Not many of 'em do down there. The Apaches came one day and carried you off. Horses, mules, cattle, good cook—killed all the rest."

"How do you know?" suddenly interrupted Dolores. "I remember all that. Don't want to, but I can't help it. Same thing happen a great many times. Apaches are great warriors. Many Bears is a great chief. Bring back heap of prisoners every time."

She was telling Murray what he wanted to know, but he saw that he must ask his questions carefully, for, as he said to himself, "I never saw a woman so completely Indianized. She is more of an Apache than a Mexican now."

He talked and Dolores answered him, and all the while the two girls heard every word.

Ni-ha-be would have liked to make comments every now and then, and it was quite a trial to be compelled to keep so still, but Rita would not have spoken on any account. It seemed to her as if Dolores were telling all that to her instead of to Send Warning. She found herself thinking almost aloud about him.

"What a kind, sweet voice he has! He cannot speak Apache. I know he is good."

In another moment she again came near betraying herself, for the words were on her very lips before she could stop them and still them down to an excited whisper.

"He is not talking even Mexican now. It is the tongue of the talking leaves, and I can hear what he says."

More than that, for she soon found that she could repeat them over and over to herself, and knew what they meant.

Murray had talked to Dolores as long as was permitted by Indian ideas of propriety, and it was just as he was turning a............