excitement, the dramatic, ungoverned
excitement of children. While with shrill cries two or three of the
women gathered the little ones together, the rest pulled frantically at
the poles holding each tepee in place. Still apparently quite unmoved,
Wildenai sought first her father standing surprised but unafraid in the
doorway of his lodge. Tall and spare and stern he looked, straight as
some lonely pine on the slopes of distant San Jacinto. Yet even in
the stress of such a moment a tender light stole into his eyes as they
rested upon his motherless daughter.

Wildenai made obeisance and for a brief moment the two surveyed each
other in silence. Then,

"It is well thou art come, my beloved one," spoke the chief. "Stranger
pale-faces will soon be amongst us."

"Wildenai feels no fear, my father," quietly answered the girl.

"If they come in friendship," quickly Torquam replied, "then indeed may
all be well. But the ship is not of the Senor's fleet, and if so be that
we must fight, thou wert better hidden in the cave. We shall see."

Bending her head in mute acquiescence the girl moved away to join the
group of women now almost ready to depart.

Meantime the vessel's long boat, driven onward by the stout arms of
three strong sailors, steadily approached the bay.

"What think'st thou then, Rufus Broadmead, of this fool's errand to the
savages?" inquired one of these, resting upon his oars for a moment that
he might the better listen to the tumult on the shore. "Wot ye not that
if water had been the only boon he craves the captain had fared much
better on the mainland? Besides, did not I myself overhear the Apache
only yesterday tell him of a certainty that the tribes over there were
away on the warpath? But no, by the mass, here must we risk our precious
scalps to row into the very teeth of the heathen, and that to humor the
whim of as obstinate an Englishman as ever sailed aboard Her Majesty's
fleets!" and without awaiting any reply he lowered his oars in disgust.

The others laughed.

"Hast been, then, so stupid, brother Giles, for all thy listening with
thy big ears, as not to know 'tis Spanish treasure ever and naught else
our captain seeks? Water,--pouf!" the speaker made a rough grimace,
"water may well serve as an excuse, and what to bold Sir Francis were
the lives of half a dozen seamen when booty for the queen lies in the
balance? The Apache told him, too,--thou see'st thou hast not played the
listeni