All the while that Murray had been sitting among the Apache chiefs and answering their questions, and even when he and Steve mounted the mustangs Red Wolf brought them, there had been three pairs of very keen eyes, not to speak of any others, closely watching him.

"He is not an Apache!" exclaimed Ni-ha-be to Rita. "Why do they make a chief of him? He is nothing but an old pale-face!"

"He is wise. He is good. The great chief listens to him. All the warriors listen. They did as he said to-night, and so they beat the Lipans."

"He is not a warrior. He did not go out and fight."

"All warriors do not go always. Some stay in camp. Young squaws like you and me must not talk about chiefs."

That was good Apache teaching, and Ni-ha-be knew it, but she seemed to have formed a strong dislike for Send Warning, and she retorted,

"He is not a chief—only a pale-face. I will talk about him as much as I please. You like him because he is one of your own people."

Rita was silent. There was a very strange feeling in her heart just then, and she was trying to understand it.

For long years, ever since she was a little girl, she had been taught to think of herself as an Apache maiden, the daughter of a great chief, and she had grown to be very proud of it. She had been even ashamed, at times, of the fact that, in some way that she did not quite understand, she was a pale-face also. Ni-ha-be had been apt to throw it at her whenever there was any dispute between them, and that had helped to keep her from forgetting it.

And, now she had seen Send Warning and Knotted Cord, she had felt that a sort of change was coming over her. She was young, but she could see that in some way they were the superiors of all the red warriors around them. They were listened to and looked up to, although they were almost strangers. To her eyes they were better-looking, something higher and nobler, and she was not at all ashamed of the thought that they belonged to her own people. Then it had come to her, with a great rush of joy in her heart, that she could speak her own language—a little of it. She could even hear many words from the mysterious talking leaves of the pale-faces, and no Apache girl could do that—not even Ni-ha-be herself, for all her wonderfully good eyes.

Then there came to the camp the great excitement caused by finding out the escape of the Lipan prisoners, and quickly after that had come the departure of the force sent out to recapture them.

Rita and Ni-ha-be had been standing side by side, watching all that was done.

"Send Warning is going on the war-path now, Ni-ha-be."

"So are Red Wolf and Knotted Cord. Young braves are worth more than wrinkled old men."

"The great chief himself is wrinkled a little."

"He is a great brave. He must be angry by this time. He will send for Dolores."

They did not know how earnestly that important woman had been using her own eyes all that time. She had seen as much as had either of them, and she was close to them at that moment.

"Young squaws go back to lodge right away. See? All squaws go in a hurry."

A few sharp words from one of the old men had started them, and they were indeed hurrying. They knew there was a good deal of bad temper up in the village just then, and there was no telling who might be made to suffer for it. The last squaw to get home would be very likely to meet a cross husband, and Indian husbands are not pleasant company when anything has made them cross.

The two girls hurried with the rest, and Dolores had very little to say to them.

It was now Ni-ha-be's turn to notice something of a change. Not in herself, but in Dolores. She had been accustomed to feel that whatever difference was made between Rita and herself was in her own favor. She felt that it was right it should be so, much as she loved her adopted sister, for after all it was a great advantage to be every bit an Apache. She was often sorry for Rita, but she could not help her having been born white.

Now, however, although it required all her keenness to detect it, there seemed to be something of unusual respect in the voice and manner of Dolores whenever she spoke to Rita. A touch of special kindness came with it. Not a sign of harshness showed itself all the way to the lodge, although Dolores had one or two pretty sharp things to say to Ni-ha-be. The Mexican darkness of the chief's "great cook" had helped everybody to almost forget her origin, but the thought of it came slowly into Ni-ha-be's mind.

"She read one of the talking leaves herself. It made her shut her eyes and kneel down. Send Warning talked with her. She is as bad as Rita. She is not an Apache at heart."

That was hardly fair to Mother Dolores, for it was only too true that, as Murray said of her, "she was completely Indianized." Even now she was not thinking of herself as a pale-face, or longing to be anything else than the "cook squaw" of the mighty war-chief Many Bears. No; she was not thinking of herself, but a great cloud was gathering in her mind, and she felt that it all belonged in some way to Rita.

She did not speak of it, but she felt a good deal more comfortable after the two girls were safe behind the skin cover of their own lodge.

"Great chief not go on war-path. Better not see young squaws just now. He will send for the talking leaves in the morning. Send Warning will read them to him. He did not look so old to-night. He was a very handsome man when he was young. So long ago!"

Ni-ha-be had been right about her father's appetite, for it was only a few minutes before he came stalking toward the camp-fire for some venison-steak, and Dolores had been wise enough to have it on the coals, so as not to keep him waiting.

He never dreamed of telling her, nor she of asking him, anything about the events of the night or the plans of the warriors, but all the whi............